


Nightfall

by Pitkin, skimmonsfiction



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:32:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitkin/pseuds/Pitkin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/skimmonsfiction/pseuds/skimmonsfiction
Summary: This is the story of one night in the second world war; December the 29th, 1940.





	1. Teaser Trailer

All credit for creating this video goes to skimmonsfiction, please give her all the praise!! :D

Notes:   
While halfway through my vacation, skimmonsfiction sent me the link for this video with the preface that she had an idea for a story. Obviously, I couldn't resist! So we did a oneshot. I use the term 'oneshot' loosely as it turned out to be about 28K words, so. 

So! Enjoy the trailer while I work on editing out as many typos as I can to prepare for posting and subscribe or check back soon for the story!!   
So long for now and remember - dance like everyone's watching but you're already six tequila shots in and there's no turning back! ;)   
<3


	2. They'r Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Graphic description of injuries in a WWII hospital ward during the Blitz. 
> 
> Part 1, here we go!  
> Hang onto your butts and enjoy the ride!  
> Part 2 is coming just as soon as I finish formatting!  
> <3  
> :D
> 
> __________

Daisy Johnson was not a man, but she was currently dressed like one. It had taken her ten days on a cargo ship to get to the UK, and another few to get to London from her docking point. Over the course of those days, Daisy had sweet talked her way into all the necessary British military [uniform](https://i.imgur.com/zvvoHUm.jpg) pieces she needed in order to move more freely among civilian population with less questions thrown her way than if she’d remained in her female civilian clothing with her press pass paperwork. Her brown trousers were a bit over-sized but were tucked into her socks and boots, which were tied up properly. Her belt was cinched tight enough to keep the pants from falling. She had on a collarless long sleeved shirt underneath her battle dress BDU jacket. Over top of everything was her rucksack, which was strapped over both shoulders and had a waist belt that hooked in the front. There were two square packs that hung where the waist belt met the shoulder straps (which help hide the curve of her chest quite a bit as well). The left one held her notebooks, paper files, pencils and pens. The right one held what few preserved rations she could trade for over the couple of days she’d been working her way to the particular hospital she was entering just then as well as her camera and canisters of extra film rolls. Her face and hands were dirt smudged along with her uniform. Her jaw length hair was expertly tucked up into her helmet to hide it. At her right waist was a service pistol tucked into a holster, her left waist was an RAD officers dagger sheathed in its holster. Admittedly, she’d nicked this knife from an officer after she’d won it fair and square in a poker game and he’d refused to actually hand it over. A canteen was at the back of her left hip. She had no rifle but no one seemed bothered by this so far. There were any number of stories she could have made up on the fly about what happened to it if she needed to. 

Daisy was on a mission. She’d been sent overseas to cover the regular bombings happening there as part of Germany’s offense against the British mainland. America had yet to enter the war and there were compelling reasons as to why on both sides of the argument. It was clear the population would need to be swayed from their isolationism in order to bring the country into action. Daisy’s bosses thought this could be done with the use of compelling journalism and so, Daisy had volunteered to be shipped overseas to investigate and relay back whatever she found. A tip had led her to the particular hospital she was carefully navigating, looking to speak with one Doctor Simmons for some insight into the kinds of injuries the Brits were sustaining as part of the nightly bombing raids. 

Moving through the halls, Daisy ducked out of the way whenever too many employees seemed to be rushing by or when new patients were brought in. She didn’t want to hinder anyone’s treatment by intruding. So she observed and she searched, looking for any sight of a head doctor. After some time and some short hand note taking, Daisy’s patience had worn a bit thin. She waited, leaning against the inner doorway of a supply closet and spotted a nurse on her way down the hall. Daisy ducked out of sight and waited until the nurse was mostly past the doorway. She dropped her voice down low so it came out sounding deep, more like a man’s, especially as she spoke quietly as well. “Excuse me, miss,” She hooked the nurse loosely by her bent elbow, feigning off the best accented lilt she could without it sounding completely awful. “My apologies for intruding upon a busy nurse in her duties, but could you tell me where I might find Doctor Simmons? I’ve been told I should look to speak with him-,” Daisy never got the chance to finish as the nurse whirled on her. 

“Doctor Simmons?” Jemma cut off the soldier with the moderately-terrible-at-best British accent. It was strange to be pulled aside into a storage closet by who upon speaking was revealed as not a genuine soldier, but it was honestly hard to faze her at that point.    
  
“You’re looking for Dr. Simmons?” Jemma raised a brow and questioned. She gently tugged her elbow away from the stranger, shrugged her shoulder so the name sewn onto her white dress was visible, and waited to see how the stranger responded or had the observational skills to catch up.

Daisy blinked as the nurse’s face came into view. She was momentarily dazed by the confused and...possibly angry? Daisy wasn’t entirely sure...bright (but tired) brown eyes that were suddenly scrutinizing her. She worked her jaw to close it from hanging slightly open and straightened her back, squared up her shoulders without feeling entirely sure why this felt suddenly necessary. “Ye-,” Daisy paused and cleared her throat. Her own brow furrowed at that point and she quickly collected herself.  _ Stay on task, Johnson, _ she scolded herself. “Yes, ma’am,” she nodded. “I’m looking for…” she paused as her eyes hit the name on the nurse’s uniform and her brain started dropping the puzzle pieces into place.  _ Shit _ . 

“You,”  _ Double shit _ . “I’m looking for Doctor Simmons and you...are Doctor Simmons, right...of course. He wouldn’t mention that would he?” Daisy was practically muttering to herself. She cleared her throat again roughly. “Hunter told me to find you.” She said by way of extremely vague explanation and she didn’t say so very loudly or without a careful glance up and down the hall from the doorway. 

“Yes, me.” Jemma said curtly. Her unhappy expression didn’t cease and she didn’t seem to budge much at this stranger’s mention of Hunter.    
  
“I don’t know what Lance promised you or said about me, but whatever it is I’m sure you can find it somewhere else.” Jemma huffed slightly and stepped away from the closet door. “Unless you need medical care, in that case you can check in at the front.” She finished and began a quick walk down the hallway where she had been headed in the first place.

“Huh?” It blurted out before Daisy could stop it as the doctor was suddenly back in the hallway. Daisy quickly looked down the hall in the opposite direction. “Hey, wait!” It was a hushed type of shout as she quickly darted out after Doctor Simmons. She made a very determined mental note not to tell this woman that Lance did say the Doctor could be ‘quite difficult, and frequently stodgy’ in a few less gentle terms. She’d been expecting a gruff, pasty old man with a stiff upper lip and eyes that had seen too many atrocious injuries to be phased by the pain and suffering any longer. She had not expected...well, the real Doctor Simmons. “I’m not after anything nefarious-” once again, the good Doctor didn’t let her finish. 

When the soldier called for Jemma to wait, the higher pitch of the voice calling out for her made Jemma stop in her tracks. She turned around and while the soldier tried to explain, Jemma found confirmation. Baggy clothes could only do so much, the stranger’s voice had given her away. Now that she was out of the closet and in the light Jemma could see her more delicate facial features through the smudges of dirt around her face. Jemma’s mouth pursed into a thin line and her eyes narrowed, looking the woman up and down as if she would find her motives. There was no military grade rifle, meaning she wasn’t a soldier at all. That and she didn’t seem to fit in her clothes or even her persona.    
  
“Then why is it you are impersonating a soldier of the British army, and with an awful accent?” Jemma scoffed. 

_ Oh, hell _ . Daisy very nearly sighed, but she knew exactly what kind of mess she’d be in if she came across a person witnessing her impersonating a soldier that she couldn’t sweet talk out of turning her in. Daisy glanced down the hall again, then reached for Jemma’s arms to shuffle them off to a less brightly lit corner of the hall.  “I’m a writer,” Daisy blurted quickly but quietly as she did, dropping the accent altogether, which was a good thing since it gave her less to have to focus on. “A reporter. I was sent on assignment to document what’s happening here,” She explained. “I’m just after information, nothing else,” she paused a moment. “Does Hunter send soldiers chasing after your tail or something?” She wondered aloud before she could think better of it. 

Jemma didn’t appreciate being shuffled around, but something about the woman who pretended to be a man had her intrigued, so she didn’t call out for help. Instead she listened to her and recognized her real accent immediately.   
  
“An American journalist, huh?” Jemma repeated, mostly just to tease her new acquaintance. It was easy to be short with the woman. “I wasn’t aware America had a particular longing to interest themselves with the war.” Jemma rolled her eyes, commenting on America’s isolationist policy as of late with sarcasm. “And Hunter can sod off.” Jemma’s nose scrunched up when she thought of him. 

“It’s not the first time he’s tried to set me up with a man.” Jemma shook her head. Her cousin had a way of butting into her life and trying to convince her to become a housewife like the rest of England’s women. “Though you’re not a man, are you?” Jemma caught her bottom lip between her teeth, perfectly aware that she was flirting with the “soldier” for fun, trying to throw her off guard.

Daisy frowned. She didn’t appreciate the tone the doctor took in repeating her occupation anymore than she imagined the Doctor appreciated being confused with a man surely on a regular basis. “The majority of them don’t,” She replied. “The idea is to change their minds,” she let go of the doctor’s arms once she thought she there was enough shadow to appear simply as a soldier speaking to a medical professional in the hall. 

She was prepared for the doctor to try and rat her out to someone. She wasn’t, at all, prepared for her to...flirt with her? She blinked, surprised yet again. “No, I-,” Daisy cut herself off as she heard movement in the hall behind her indicating someone coming by. She inched closer to the doctor and made sure her back was to any passerby. It wouldn’t be too odd to see a soldier in a uniform that didn’t quite fit right. There were any number of reasons it could happen, surely. Her face mere inches from the doctors, a crooked grin curled up the right side of her mouth. “Perhaps you turned down enough of the men folk, he figured he’d throw you a different kind of bone,” the words were out and Daisy couldn’t stop them. She didn’t really want to, honestly. It wasn’t that she didn’t know there were women who felt attracted to other women. She’d found herself in such situations before, it was fair enough to reason others, even the good Doctor would as well. “I meant no offense in mistaking you earlier for anything other than Doctor Simmons,” She said without moving away once the others had passed behind them in the hall. 

Jemma saw the moment the woman’s eyes went from surprise to flirtation, and it made a tiny little grin that she couldn’t quite contain show on her face. She was willing to play along for a little longer. She let her hand come up and rest on the stranger’s shoulder, fingers ever so slightly curling into the extra material of her uniform.    
  
“What might be the name of the bone I’ve been thrown?” Jemma asked with a small, coy smile.

Daisy’s eyes never strayed from the doctor’s even after she felt the pressure of her grip on her shoulder. “Johnson,” She answered before her lopsided grin stretched further across her mouth. “Daisy,” She paused and rearranged it. “ _ Private _ Daisy Johnson, reporting for duty,” she swung her hand up for a salute - a proper one, as she’d had Hunter to teach her a few things that might help her avoid getting arrested or, you know, killed. 

“In that case,” Jemma smirked and looked around the halls to see if anyone was nearby. Sure she hadn’t been thrilled about Daisy’s assumption that she was a nurse, but it happened a lot, and to be fair, Jemma had assumed Daisy was a man at first glance. She couldn’t be a hypocrite. “What business do you have with Dr. Jemma Simmons?” She asked, slipping in her first name for Daisy’s knowledge.

Daisy couldn’t help the stupid smile on her face as she repeated the Doc’s full name in her head a few times. She heard more murmurs coming down the hall and shuffled even closer to Jemma, bracing herself with her hand on the wall behind Jemma. This time her mouth was close to Jemma’s ear. “I need facts,” Her lips just barely grazed along Jemma’s ear as she spoke softly. “Details on what it’s been like since they started dropping the bombs, stats on injuries, casualties.” She paused a moment and felt the more serious nature of her mission as it weighed her shoulders down a bit. “Pictures, if at all possible.” She wasn’t against flirting at all but the fact remained that she was here for a specific purpose too, an important one. 

“Almost a million children and mothers have evacuated to the countryside.” Jemma’s eyes darkened as the facts she’d picked up, both from hospital records and other news stories, began spewing out of her. For a while, she felt like she had become immune to the horrors of war in a civilian occupied area, as she’d seen the damage bombs could do to men, women, and children, but she hadn’t realized how much it got to her until Daisy showed an interest. “Several hundred people have been killed since the raids began and many more have been injured. I’ve seen everything from third degree burns to crushed bodies. I’ve seen people damaged beyond belief.” Jemma’s hand dropped from Daisy’s shoulder and her eyes averted to the floor. “You can take pictures only of patients who give their express consent.”

Daisy swallowed hard against the rising bile in her throat as her imagination overran with images, some she’d seen already in pictures, some she’d had described to her by soldiers home on temporary leave or intelligence assignments. A much smaller clinic a few towns over was the closest she’d come to seeing the kinds of injuries the bombings caused. They’d been outlying towns, not close to the main bombing sights. She had no real tangible grasp of the kinds of things she might see here among the patients or, worse...the morgue. She needed details to describe it, not just the facts, honestly. She needed the sights, sounds, smells, the fear, repulsion - as much as she didn’t want anyone to have to live through such things, her job was to document them in brutal honesty. She wasn’t going to shy away from it. 

The expressions on Jemma’s face and the change in the sound of her tone pulled a tightness in Daisy’s chest she wasn’t prepared for. “Thank you.” She shifted back, moving herself out of Jemma’s personal space after causing a turn in their conversation. “I’m sorry to have to make you relive anything unnecessarily,” She said. “The more interviews I can do, the more I can send back home,”  _ and kick their asses into gear _ , she thought to herself. It wasn’t that her home country wasn’t supplying goods and arms at least, but that was capitalistic in nature and a far cry from what they could be doing to aid in the allies. “And, perhaps, by the end of your shift I can convince you to let me buy you a drink,” she flashed a tiny crooked smile. “To make up for my earlier incorrect assumption?” And to maybe erase a few of the traumatizing memories for a brief span of time, she figured. 

Jemma looked up with a stunned expression on her face when Daisy offered to take her to go get a drink. She knew she’d started the flirting, but she hadn’t expected it to go anywhere. A distraction from her work was welcome though, and even though Christmas had been four days ago, she still hadn’t been able to relax because of the war’s effects. Maybe this would be a step in the right direction for her personal life.    
  
“I’d like that.” Jemma shyly smiled and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. The firm, authoritative Jemma Simmons that had snapped at Daisy earlier gave way to a much more shy, flustered version of herself and the pink in her cheeks gave her away as easily as Daisy’s voice had. “You can come speak with some of the patients, but not until you clean up.” Jemma gave Daisy a once-over and realized she posed a danger of giving patients infections with the amount of dirt she was carrying on her. “There’s a bathroom down the hall on the left. Here,” Jemma walked the few steps back toward the closet and found an extra nurse’s uniform.    
  
“This will do for now, I don’t think the other doctors or my higher ups would approve of this.” Jemma passed the clothes to Daisy while nobody was looking. Her coworkers and bosses held a discontempt for America because of its inaction and she didn’t want anyone to find out about the impersonation or Daisy could get into heals of trouble.

Daisy couldn’t help the extra smile that came when Jemma turned bashful. That was also unexpected and quite a few levels of adorable to witness. Daisy blinked and looked down at herself. Honestly the dirt and grime had worked in her favor for impersonation purposes. She hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten until she’d looked down at herself. She looked down the hall in the direction Jemma indicated for the bathroom and then looked down at the clothes Jemma dropped in her arms almost in dismay. She couldn’t say she had missed wearing skirts or dresses. 

With a resigned nod and deep breath, Daisy nodded. “Thanks, Doc,” She said. “Should I meet you back here after I change?” It would do well to get stick by Jemma if she could to avoid too much trouble once she was changed. 

“That would be best. Stay with me and none of the doctors ask you to do anything.” Jemma explained. “They’re, well... they all either dislike me or fear me.” Jemma scratched the back of her head with a nervous chuckle but proceeded to gently turn Daisy by the shoulders and steer her in the direction of the bathroom.

The right corner of Daisy’s mouth tipped upward slightly. “Well I don’t dislike you,” She leaned in closer, “Should I fear you?” she asked with a very slight, and somewhat suggestive, arch of her eyebrows just before Jemma pushed her in the direction of the bathroom. Daisy spared Jemma one last glance over her shoulder before she disappeared. Inside the bathroom, she was very careful to pack the military uniform in to her rucksack as she would need to change back into it later when leaving the hospital. She changed into the nurse’s uniform after carefully washing her arms (up to her forearms) and her face and neck. She left her boots on since she had no real choice about them but at least the skirt covered them most of the way. 

Daisy carried her pack out with her and slipped past Jemma so she could find a proper hiding space for it in the far reaches of the supply closet. Finally going back out into the hallway, she stepped toward Jemma, tucking a notepad and pencil into the pocket of the apron at her front. She tied her hair up with some ribbon she’d grabbed from her pack, hoping to disguise the shortness of the cut she had and then smoothed out the front of the uniform. “Do I pass?” She asked, motioning to herself in her new look. 

“You look like a woman.” Jemma chuckled and couldn’t help but let her eyes wander from Daisy’s face down to her feet and then back up again. It was completely different to be able to see her hair and see past all the dirt. “That’s all you need to pass as a nurse around here.” Jemma laughed at her own reference to Daisy’s mistake earlier when she first grabbed Jemma’s attention.   
  
“Come with me.” Jemma circled Daisy’s wrist with her fingers and led her through what seemed like a maze of hallways until they reached a room divided by curtains with people avidly talking- sometimes making sounds of pain- behind them.    
  
“Good evening, Mr. Wilson. How are you feeling?” Jemma pushed aside a curtain and slipped inside with Daisy behind her. The man in front of her was mostly covered in bandages except for his face, which looked like it had nearly been melted off. The burns were healing, but the scars would never fade. “This is Daisy, she’s here to speak with you.” Jemma turned to Daisy and put her on the spot while she scribbled some notes on Mr. Wilson’s chart. The man in the bed struggled to form a response, but he managed to say he was feeling better that day and said hello to Daisy. His voice was raspy from the smoke inhalation and the burns on his face made it difficult to speak.

Daisy grimaced, flushed a bit pink in the cheeks and ducked her gaze to the floor. She’d have to form a proper apology for that once they went for that drink. She didn’t fight at all when Jemma grabbed her wrist and led the way, she merely followed suit, thankful that Hunter’s tip hadn’t led her astray. Daisy focused on the twists and turns so she would know exactly how to get herself back to that supply closest on the fly if she needed to, though she hoped she wouldn’t need to make a quick escape of any kind.

Daisy stuck by Jemma at what she thought was a comfortable enough distance not to draw any unwanted attention. She did her best not to make it obvious as her eyes scanned the room of talking patients, her face twitching with concern when she heard certain sounds of pain coming from the patients closest to them. When they came to Mr. Wilson’s bed, at first Daisy saw only the bandages. Her eyes lifted to his face and, though she felt her stomach twist and the bile rise in the back of her throat, she kept her face impassive and even managed instead to offer the badly burned man a warm, if sympathetic, smile. “Hello Mr. Wilson,” Daisy shifted closer to the man’s bedside. When she spoke this time, hr accent was a perfectly mimicked affection of a native Parisian speaking English as it was on accent she had perfected where her English one was much less than spectacular, as already established. She forced herself to act as if this man was any other interviewee. She knew to give her questions more patience so he could answer and wherever possible she’d for them as yes or no questions. 

“I won’t take up too much of your time,” she tried to make sure the accent wasn’t too thick to be understood since the man was clearly going through something awful. She sat down on the edge of his bed and asked him questions - was he at home on the night of his injury? If not, where was he? If so, did his family survive? Were they in the hospital as well? Did he remember being pulled from the fire? Was there anyone he wanted to send a message to? She kept it as conversational as possible and whenever he answer something emotionally, Daisy found the only patch of skin that seemed unmarred from the fire - which happened to be his left thumb and a small patch of the heel of his hand - and gently rested her hand on it to provide some form of human touch that was more than scrubbing, cleaning wounds or changing wound dressings as she was sure this was some of the only physical contact he must have had given his condition. It took everything in her to keep her face impassive, to keep the burning in her eyes to a minimum and to keep her sparing lunch down in her stomach. 

Jemma was initially feeling protective of her patient when Daisy’s questions made his eyes well up with tears, but Daisy proceeded with a calm compassion that Jemma hadn’t expected and she found herself nearly in a trance watching the interaction. The man’s family had died, they were in a bomb shelter that took a direct hit and he had been trapped inside the rubble while he was on fire. It was a terrifying story, to realize that not even in the bomb shelters were people completely safe. It made Jemma glad there had only been a few bombings in the last two weeks, presumably because of Christmas. The lull in the storm gave people time to heal and the doctors time to rest, but Jemma felt like they were in the eye of the hurricane and the storm wasn’t over.

Daisy had yet to be in the actual area of a bombing during her days in the country when it was happening. The fear was still palpable when sirens could be heard anywhere. She'd witnessed a handful of families being reprimanded by officials for the tiniest bits of light peaking through cracks they'd missed in blacking out their houses at night. She knew that she wasn't fully prepared for the amount of danger she was putting herself in and her ignorance was that pet that scared her most. The haunted look she'd seen in so many eyes while they struggled to mask their faces much in the way she was doing right now was an ever present reminder that she was in for something she'd never experienced despite any of her previous assignments or her own life history. The anticipation of it all was maddening and she was determined in her chronicling of events to do justice to the unyielding resilience of the people around living through this nightmare and still going about their daily lives.   
  
Daisy kept her thoughts on them and the tumult they were experiencing, more than a little aware that this wasn't even the worst of what was happening in the whole of Europe at the moment. She did make a mental note to ask Jemma of she'd heard any stories from the front lines from soldiers that had been transferred back to see if she might be able to corroborate some of the rumors she'd heard flying around the canteen whole she'd been taking Hunter or every penny he had in poker.   
  
After Mr. Wilson gave her information on where his brother was supposed to be stationed along with a message to send him, Daisy gave that small patch of untouched skin a reassuring but very gentle squeeze and promised, "If he's reachable by any communications possible, I will make sure he gets your message," she vowed in genuine earnest before she thanked him for his time and bid him to rest well though she wasn't sure he'd be able to without some very high doses of morphine. She stood, then and stepped out from the curtained area and stashed her notebook and pencil in her apron, pressed a hand to her gut to feel her diaphragm as it rose and fell with the deep breaths she took to steady herself.   
  
Daisy wasn't the type to be faint of heart at all, but this was beyond her life experiences and overwhelming. She became more aware of the clinical smell of the hospital around her - cleaning chemicals mixed with the odor of what she could only assume was decaying flesh for some of the many patients in the large holding area. The two smells met and mixed with the scent of yet to be emptied/washed bedpans filled with various fluids to make a horrid smell that she was sure didn't affect the other doctors and nurses the way it was affecting Daisy's churning stomach. They had to be scent blind to such things by no where Daisy was not. Something else caught her ears, above the groaning sounds of pain or the murmurs of conversation among adult patients. It drew her in like a magnet, pulling her feet one in front of the other to an offshoot of the larger room. Children. There was an entire wing of children, playing, laughing,  crying, whining in pain and fear. Daisy's advance stalled just inside the threshold of the room, eyes wide and the horror and concern clearly etched into her face now.   
  
"How many of them are orphans now?" She asked without realizing she'd spoken the words aloud.   
  
Jemma followed where Daisy was wandering with concern. Just watching the way Daisy tried to stomach her surroundings told all Jemma needed to know about Daisy’s character. She was a good person who, like the rest of them had at the beginning of the bombings, was just starting to absorb the horrors around them.   
  
“Most of them.” Jemma sighed and gently placed a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. The children had often come in with their families, and not all of the parents survived. Most of the children were scheduled to be evacuated to volunteers who would take care of them in more rural areas of the country. “That boy right there, his name is Ace. His father died in a raid a few nights before Christmas. He was part of the fire department.” Jemma pointed at the little boy playing with action figures of soldiers by himself in the corner. 

Amidst the overwhelming deluge of horror, sympathy and sadness that washed over her, empathy from her own childhood experiences flooded her system. Her weight shifted ever so slightly to lean into Jemma's touch, to let that steady her as she struggled to retain control over her emotions. Just the facts, Johnson, she reminded herself, you need a clear mind to sort, catalog and compile this information coherently.    
  
Of their own volition, Daisy’s feet carried her toward the corner where Ace was playing alone. She crouched down when she was within arms reach and set the previous French accent into place. This one had been perfected from a nun who worked at the orphanage Daisy grew up in after her parents had passed within six months of each other when she was seven years old. Daisy spent hours mimicking the sweet nun's voice while following her around like a shadow whenever she was trying to avoid getting into fights with the other children if they were in the mood for bullying.    
  
"Hello," Daisy brought her hand to rest very gently on the back of the boy's shoulder. "I'm  Daisy," she introduced herself. "How are you feeling today?" She asked.

“Hi Daisy.” Ace chirped back happily. If Daisy hadn’t been told about his father, she probably wouldn’t have even been able to tell. “I get my stitches out tomorrow.” He informed Daisy before putting his action figures under a house made of blocks before he grabbed a ball from nearby and made a whistling sound before he mimicked slamming it down into the house, destroying it and crushing all the little plastic toy soldiers inside.

Daisy arched her eyebrows a little and was opening her mouth to ask Ace where his stitches were but she had to drop her eyes and cover her mouth when he basically recreated one of the bombings with the toys. Her free hand came to rest lightly on the little boy's shoulder, trying to imagine normalizing something so horrid to the point that it was just a regular addition to play time. His parents or family had likely died this way, he might have even been found under that rubble with his injuries and here he was,just incorporating what was now mostly everyday life for him. It was so far beyond heartbreaking, Daisy couldn't even mentally process it properly.

Ace paused his play when Daisy’s hand reached his shoulder and for a moment he was frozen, just staring back into Daisy’s deep gaze, mouth slightly open and eyes slightly narrowed, like he was trying to figure out what Daisy was doing. For that split second, there was a connection, but then Ace went about bringing more soldiers over and digging the previous ones out from the rubble.    
  
“My dad used to do that. He dug people out.” Ace said suddenly, never looking away from the heroic action figures that dug through the blocks. “Until they dug him out.”    
  
“Ace, it’s time to eat.” One of the women who took care of the children called his name. Without Ace or Daisy realizing, the other children had cleared out of the room until Ace had to be called by name.    
  
“Coming.” Ace didn’t look Daisy in the eye and he grabbed one toy soldier, the one from underneath the rubble, and stashed it in his pocket so he could go eat with it at his side.

Daisy's gaze silently followed Ace as he dashed away and it was only then that her eyes began to give her away, starting with a telltale burn in the bridge of her nose before they welled over slightly. She looked back down at the makeshift rubble in front of her that Ace had setup and knocked down and wondered who it was the little boy would be going to live with when they transferred him out of here. She wondered how far removed from the bombings he would be once he was settled after evacuation. She wondered how many of the other children were acting similarly to the little boy.    
  
She forced herself back to her feet, somewhat glad now that Jemma had made her change her clothes. It would have looked awfully suspicious to be dressed as a soldier getting emotional and watery eyed over patients and orphans. When she finally turned to Jemma, she'd already blinked the wet tears away to stave them off and her brow was a mess of stiff creases. There was a mixture of sadness in her eyes and guilt that all she had to do about this situation was write down words and send them home in the hopes that it would light fires under people asses and spring them into some form of action.    
  
"How do you do this?" She asked Jemma, not at all sure how the woman held herself together. Daisy had seen some awful shit in her day, but this...this was all so far beyond her scope of 'horrid,' and that was sure saying something. "Everyday. How do you keep yourself together?" She asked, genuinely wanting to know, maybe needing to know there was a way to do it.

“You know what they say...” Jemma closed the distance between Daisy and herself and carefully grabbed for Daisy’s hand, giving it a squeeze. It was rare for her to meet someone that wasn’t regularly in a war zone, so she had forgotten the kind of tender care and affection that was needed after being exposed to their life.

“You just keep calm...” Jemma tugged at Daisy’s hand to pull her closer and she wrapped one arm around Daisy’s waist while the other dropped Daisy’s hand and cradled the back of her head near her own shoulder. “And carry on.” She whispered. That was their life here, and she didn’t know if it would end because the allies won or end because of a bomb.

“And sometimes you cry.” Jemma continued. “But it’s better to cry at home alone some nights than to become someone who doesn’t cry.”

Daisy didn't know how to react at first to the shift from hand squeeze to hug. She struggled a moment to remember the last time she'd been hugged, or held really for a prolonged period of time. She was left just to lean into the welcome feeling though her brain kept shouting at her to pull away and pull herself together. The image of Jemma crying alone in her bed at night brought Daisy's arms up to wind around Jemma in turn.    
  
Movement from the other wing and someone calling out something unintelligible made Daisy pull back suddenly, not wanting to get Jemma caught after she'd stuck her neck out to help Daisy. She sniffled as quietly as possible, blinked the layer of saline away from her eyes and cleared her throat. "Do you remember whenever was the last day you had off? I mean, to yourself...where you didn't have to come into work?" She asked purely out of curiosity. She imagined time must start blending heavily together day in and day out of the chaos.

“Not since before the bombs started dropping.” Jemma pulled back and took a step away, embarrassed at having exposed her own emotions and becoming so vulnerable, especially to someone she’d just met. On the other hand, it was slightly comforting to be someone that wasn’t hardened from experience for a change. Either way, the emotions waged a war inside Jemma and she couldn’t figure out which side was winning.    
  
“I’ve got time off now.” Jemma suddenly blurted. She hadn’t revealed to Daisy that she had been off the clock since a few minutes before she’d been pulled aside into the storage closet for her own safety, but she didn’t feel like Daisy was any kind of a threat to her now. “What, do you think I’d have the time to show you around had I been working?” Jemma pointed out when Daisy seemed to make a face.

Daisy frowned and then gaped very slightly at Jemma for having further added to her day now that she knew the kinds of things Jemma was living through day in and out. "Can I buy you dinner?" She suddenly asked. "F-For all the trouble I've caused you," she quickly added as if she needed that reason, in case Jemma might say no otherwise.

Jemma opened her mouth to reply, but she hadn’t quite calculated a response yet so she ended up just staring at Daisy for a moment before she remembered she needed to either speak or close her mouth. She was not used to being this unprepared for things. Daisy caught her off guard like that.    
  
“It’s no trouble.” Jemma shook her head and insisted, but the devious smile from before came back. “Well, maybe a little. But I can handle it.” She chuckled. “I know a good pub across town.”

A small smile twitched about Daisy’s lips.  She tried not to feel guilty about it. "Let me change back into my uniform and we'll make our way there?" She suggested,  shifting closer to Jemma, pulled in by her gravity. "I promised Hunter I'd make sure you had a good meal and a break," she added, as if to ensure a deal. "You wouldn't wanna make a liar of me, would ya?" She arched her eyebrows slightly.

“Well, if Hunter insisted...” Jemma giggled and shamelessly reached for Daisy’s hand again to lead her back to where her things were. It wasn’t often she felt comforted by human touch, so she was apt to listen to what her body was trying to tell her brain and go with it.

___________   
  
After Daisy ducked back into the restroom and changed back into the men's military uniform, careful to do what she could to ensure it was deceptive enough at a close glance, she joined Jemma in the hall. Daisy returned the neatly nurse’s uniform to her and they set off with Jemma leading the way. Daisy's eyes shifted constantly. She was observing people and the conditions surrounding her at all times, sure, but she was also watching very carefully to keep track of those that might be watching and scrutinizing her. She didn't turn her head all about to make it obvious she was studying her surroundings as she was much more subtle than that.    
  
Her mind was back to multitasking as she was keeping up perfectly with her conversation with Jemma as they maneuvered toward the pub she'd mentioned. Having Jemma travelling with her was actually a lot more helpful for her cover actually as she kept her closest arm (which was her right arm) bent at the elbow for Jemma to loop her hand through and hold onto as they strolled. She merely appeared as a soldier on a temporary reprieve spending some quality social time with his beat girl, or whatever. It made less people glance at her with scrutiny for not having a rifle with her.    
  
"Please feel free to say no, but, may I ask you something personal?" Daisy's attention shifted to Jemma, though she was still aware of the periphery, always.

Jemma was happy to walk alongside Daisy, arms linked and sides pressed together. It helped fight of the late December chill, but that wasn’t the only reason. She felt more comfortable and happy with Daisy than she had with another person in a long time.    
  
“What do you want to know?” Jemma answered Daisy’s question with another question and turned her head to look at her face. Daisy’s cheeks and nose were slightly pink from the cold and Jemma was sure she looked the same. It was Daisy’s eyes that caught her attention though. They were deep and soulful, acting like a window that gave an in depth perspective on her emotions. She was curious, but also somehow slightly remorseful about it.

Daisy hesitated just for one brief moment. With all the turmoil Jemma had to deal with regularly, she was reluctant to possibly upset her further with the question that was eating at her mind, begging to be asked for multiple reasons. Her free hand came up to rest along Jemma's that was holding onto her bicep. She tried her best to phrase her question in the least offensive way possible. 

"Are you living through...all of this," she let go of the top of Jemma's hand for a moment to motion to their general surroundings, "by yourself?" Obviously Jemma was clearly more than adequately capable of taking care of herself as well as others but Daisy didn't know if she had family  - parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins - that had survived the bombings with her, outside of her cousin Hunter of course. She imagined they didn't often get to see each other what with Hunter's military role and Jemma's medical role. She also didn't know if there was possibly a significant other she might be keeping Jemma from by taking her out for a meal and drinks. She wanted to know if Jemma had refuge away from those terrible things she dealt with at the hospital and in the streets on nights of bombings so she wasn't alone with what Daisy imagined were unregulated mental reminders of images, smells and sounds that would never be erased from one's mind.

Jemma held her breath for a moment as Daisy asked the question, but she didn’t give an answer right away. She hadn’t even noticed it herself. Things had just ended uo the way they were and Jemma hadn’t had a moment to spare a thought toward her own personal affairs. She’d been much too busy with her patients and she hadn’t even realize that some people would find it unbearable to live in a small flat by themselves during hard times.   
  
“I suppose ‘by myself’ could describe it, yes.” Jemma finally answered. She held onto Daisy’s arm just a little bit tighter, curling her fingers slightly into Daisy’s sleeve, like if she let go the woman might leave her all alone on the street. “My parents were visiting Paris before the Germans got too close. I haven’t heard from them since June 14th.” She said quietly. They all knew what happened on June 14th. It was the day the Nazis invaded and occupied Paris, eight days before France signed an armistice with Nazi Germany. There was no way to know exactly what had happened to them or if they were still alive, but Jemma could only hope for the best. If they were safe somewhere in Paris, why would they come back to a bomb-riddled London? “There’s also my best friend Fitz, but he’s away with the military. He’s an engineer.” She added. His existence didn’t exactly provide her with company at the moment either. “And of course I don’t often see Hunter. So yes, I suppose I am by myself.” Jemma finally finished. She sniffled, which she blamed on the cold, but found she had to wipe away a single tear from the corner of her eye. It had been a long time since she’d cried outside of the safety of her bedroom.

Daisy felt the extra pressure on her arm from Jemma's fingers as she squeezed. She settled her hand back over top of Jemma's hand on her arm and immediately regretted asking the question when it brought those stray tears to Jemma's eyes. "I'm sorry," She said right away. "I shouldn't have asked, I-," she cut herself off and paused a moment, looking ahead as they walked for a few feet. She cleared her throat and looked back over at Jemma. "I have some colleagues in France. At least one of them was still in Paris when I arrived a few days ago," she said. "If you give me their names and the last address you had for them, maybe we could get a spot of luck and see what he can find out, if anything?" It wasn't anything more than a long shot since Daisy knew there had been vast displacement and she didn't even know if how long her French press contacts would be able to continue operating, but she did have one in Paris and that particular contact did still owe her one. It was worth a shot, even if it was a long shot. "Until then, you might be stuck with me poking my nose in your business every so often for info and updates," she added this part with a smile that was a combination of overconfident charm that Jemma wouldn't mind the intrusion coming from Daisy and partly hopeful that this little redirect might cheer Jemma up even just the tiniest bit for having upset her in the first place.

“Thank you, Daisy. That... that means a lot.” Jemma said quietly, eyes glued to her feet on the sidewalk. She knew it wasn’t likely her parents would be found by Daisy’s contact, but the offer was what mattered and Jemma was extremely touched by it. She forced herself to look up from the ground and gave Daisy a small, grateful smile.    
  
“Enough of this talk... let’s try to have a good night for once.” Jemma smiled and wiped away the last of her tears, determined to have a fun night out with a new friend without letting the war get in the way like it always did.

Daisy smiled, squeezed Jemma's hand and then moved instead to wind an arm around her as it was getting colder while the sun was setting. She ran her hand up and down Jemma's arm to tempt some sort of friction in the hopes of warming her up some now that she'd pulled Jemma even closer for body heat. Was it inappropriate to walk down the street in such a way?  More importantly, did Daisy care? At this point the answer was no. She'd observed and digested enough for the day, she could stand a little distraction from the reality of what she'd voluntarily signed up for. "I think I could drink a few pints to that," she grinned.

“Good, because we’re here.” Jemma chuckled and gave herself a few seconds to rest her head on Daisy’s shoulder before they came to a stop outside of her favorite pub. It was getting near dark, so the windows were blacked out, but it was still open. Jemma was sure they were a strange sight: a not quite masculine soldier with a female doctor, both in uniform, walking into a pub near nightfall. It wasn’t as though many people paid them any mind though. As they walked in, the pub, which during normal times was quite loud and rowdy, only had a few people scattered here and there either quietly eating with a few friends or too drunk to really cause much of a scene other than falling asleep on their bar stools.    
  
“London sure has changed.” Jemma shook her head. “Come on, let’s sit up front.” She grabbed Daisy’s hand and led them over to a set of bar stools near the entrance. She hopped up onto the bar stool, skirt and all, and waved down the bartender, who waved a towel at her and immediately started filling a beer from the tap. He came over and handed it to Jemma before giving Daisy a quick once over.   
  
“Jemma’s never brought any friends in, it’s nice to meet ya. The name’s Charlie. What can I get ya?” He asked, but not before holding his hand out for Daisy to shake. Jemma blushed a bit from the bartender’s embarrassing statement about her social life.

Daisy didn't get to inquire more from Jemma as she sat down on the stool and quickly switched her helmet for a proper army hat to keep her hair well hidden. She hung the helmet from the rucksack and had just enough time to straighten up on the stool before the bartender arrived. She knew with her clean face it was suspicious looking for her less than masculine features, but she was hoping the fact that she was with Jemma would mean people wouldn't fuss much. She moved with grace and her regular confidence and reached for the bartender's hand to give a firm handshake. One thing she had going from her was that her hands rent quite as soft and smooth as a woman's hands might normally be. They'd been through hard scrabble work before and were roughed over with calluses here and there, no nail polish and extremely short clipped uneven nails. Her grip on the shake was firm but not overly aggressive, warm and receptive.    
  
Daisy knew she couldn't get away with the British accent since it was terrible and not perfected and she couldn't use the French one in this uniform. "I guess she couldn't resist my charm," Daisy cast a sideways grin at Jemma. She didn't try as hard to throw the accent onto her voice this time. Instead she focused on making her vowels sound the way Jemma's did throughout their conversations just with a deeper timbre to it. "I'll have a pint as well, please," she added. It still needed work, but it was a bit more passable, she supposed. She'd let Jemma decide if she wanted to blow her cover officially to her bartender friend. Reaching into a pocket of her uniform, she fished out some money to put onto the bar for their drinks.

“Right on it.” Charlie snapped and turned around, headed back for the tap. He was the only seemingly cheerful person in the whole establishment, and to all his customers, his facade made him seem untouched by the war. Maybe he was, Jemma didn’t know. They weren’t close, but Jemma had a habit of coming here after shifts so they knew each other’s faces.

“Some chips too?” Jemma requested and added a bit of her own money to the pile while Charlie filled Daisy’s glass. He slid it down the counter for Daisy to catch and moved on to fill Jemma’s next order.

When he came back, he slid the small pile of money back toward the two women and told them, with a soft smile, “It’s on the house” and then winked at Daisy, clearly able to tell, as a bartender, that she wasn’t who she looked like she was and she definitely wasn’t just a friend. Bartenders had a sense for that sort of thing.

“Thank you.” Jemma smiled and gave Charlie’s hand a squeeze. She slid the chips in between her and Daisy and shook her head with a small chuckle. “In America you call these French fries, yes?” She smiled, lightly teasing her drinking buddy.

Daisy caught the beer and hoisted it up with a nod to Charlie to thank him. She took a quick drink off the glass and set it back on the bar as she felt the liquid go all the way down her esophagus to her stomach - how long had it been since she’d last had anything to eat or drink? Daisy found she couldn’t recall exactly how long, just that it was sometime early this morning and that it had been sparing in nature, just whatever could be scraped together. 

Daisy had been hoping that the sparing light in the bar would have been just enough to conceal her, despite the face that she was sure by the way Charlie was acting with Jemma that he wouldn’t cause her any trouble for her appearance, or she was at least trusting that much. She offered Charlie a sheepish little smile and ducked her head as she quietly thanked him as well. When Jemma spoke again, Daisy looked over at the food and was surprised to indeed see it was a pile of French fries and not a plate full of thinly sliced and fried potato chips. A soft snort of laughter bubbled up from her throat. “Yeah,” She nodded. “We do. This isn’t at all what I thought you’d ordered,” She smiled. 

“Americans.” Jemma laughed and playfully mocked Daisy. She popped a french fry into her mouth and then swallowed down a significant mouthful of her drink. She hadn’t been much of a drinker before the war, but things changed. It was one of many ways Jemma found to cope, and as long as she was able to sober up by morning to help those who were hurt during the night, she was apt to keep using whatever she could to numb the pain she felt vicariously through others. “Here, have a ‘chip.’” She laughed and held another of what Daisy called a french fry up near Daisy’s lips.

Daisy couldn’t help the way she smiled at Jemma’s jest at her expense. With Jemma seated at her side, she could almost, for just a second, forget why it was she was halfway across the world from her home, in a place where she was waiting for night time bombing raids to happen. She could forget, for just a few seconds, about the man with the melted skin she’d met today or the boy who was so used to those bombing raids that they were now part of his play time. She looked down at the french fry/chip Jemma was holding, glanced at Jemma’s face a split second and then leaned over and snatched the fry from her fingers with her mouth rather than her fingers, her lips just barley grazing at the edges of Jemma’s fingers as she did it. She sat back slightly and chewed the food with a lopsided grin, washed it down with a smaller gulp of beer than the one Jemma had taken. 

“Taste the same?” Jemma questioned. She’d never actually been the United States, but she hoped someday she’d get the chance to visit. It was out of the question until the war was over, that was for sure. People needed her here. When it was all over, maybe she’d travel the world and see the good in it. For now, she was stuck where she was, though it wasn’t all that horrible with Daisy at her side, at least for tonight.  

“Nmm,” Daisy shook her head and swallowed as she set her glass on the bar. “Sweeter,” She said just before that crooked little smile curled across her mouth again, twisting a little further upward on the right hand side. She spared a glance around the pub, a bit surprised that it was somewhat quieter than she would have expected it. She reminded herself that this wasn’t just a normal night in a pub. Right afterward, she reminded herself that Jemma wanted to have a good night and not dwell on things. “You should try them when they’re in actual ‘chip,’ form sometime,” She said, more than okay with the suggestive idea that Jemma might have to travel across the pond for such things. 

“We have those too, Daisy.” Jemma’s small giggle turned into an all out laughter that momentarily turned a few heads in the pub before people went back to their quiet brooding. “They’re just called crisps.” She informed Daisy. “You know, you could write an entire article on the differences between British and American names for potato snacks. It would be very enlightening for you.” Jemma continued her teasing and tossed another chip into her mouth.

Daisy let out a dramatic sigh. “C’mon, you can at least pretend my suggestions are charming,” She lamented but was still grinning after the way Jemma just went ahead laughing like that. It was quite the out of place sound over the last few days but it was more than a little welcome. She wondered when was the last time before just now that Jemma had laughed like that. Her teeth showed as she chuckled and grinned at Jemma’s jabs. “I’ll keep it in mind for future story pitches to my bosses,” She quipped and went in for another drink. 

“There’s something for your current article.” Jemma tipped her glass in the direction of the windows, which were covered in black tape. “That’s so no light gets through. The darker London is at night, the harder it is for the Nazis to hit us.” She took another swig of her drink. She wasn’t sure if Daisy already knew this, but she thought she might as well say it.

Daisy glance at the windows. She nodded. She’d had the misfortune of trying to navigate the night before after the sun was down. She’d walked by flashlight until an military patrolman had scolded her out of its use. That had been a major pain in the ass. She understood it, though. It was dark for a reason and she was opening up a target. “It must provide quite the break from nosy neighbors, though, I’ll give you that,” She leaned a bit closer to Jemma without thinking about it, her hand dangling at her side, every so often lightly sliding against her leg. “Does it drive you stir crazy?” she asked, “Having every bit of the windows and all covered like that?” She could see how it would get old very quickly. “Or are you so tired by the time you get home, you just drop?” 

“There’s not really much time to think about little things like windows, in all honesty.” Jemma shook her head, took another drink, and ate a couple more chips. “It’s not as high up on the list of things I don’t like about the war. There’s much worse than blacked out windows.”

“I suppose that’s true enough,” Daisy reasoned after a moment of thought. She reached for a fry from the plate. “How long have you been a doctor?” She asked before tossing the food into her mouth. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for a woman to become a doctor but, then again, maybe it was different over here than back home. 

“Only since the beginning of the war.” Jemma told her. Her status in the hospital was the only good thing all the fighting got for her. “Even after medical school and being certified, I could only get hired as a nurse. Until all the male doctors went away to be medics on the front lines, at least. Then they needed me enough to suck up their pride and let the nurse with doctor’s credentials be a doctor.” She explained. Daisy’s first assumption of her hadn’t been entirely wrong, she had been forced to work as only a nurse for the beginning of her career.

Daisy smirked. At least there were some silver linings after all. Hell, Jemma was still here and not a medic in the army, that was a silver lining as well. Then again, it was no less dangerous where they were with the air raids. It was a mixed bag, really. Daisy figured the longer she was here the more jaded she’d become about it to the point where everything didn’t leave her dazed and struggling to process so much. She worried she wouldn’t be able to do it all justice in written word to be convincing enough to chance the stubborn minds of her fellow countrymen. “You’re a rather fascinating woman, Doctor Simmons,” She informed Jemma with a rather fond little smile. “Stunning as well - that’s not a combination I’ve often seen simultaneously in one single person.” If they were going to possibly die sometime in the near future with bombs raining down, what was the harm of a bit of flirting, right? She was fairly certain Jemma would be at least somewhat receptive of such things. 

“Contrary to popular belief, the attractiveness associated with being a young woman and the intelligence of a doctor are not mutually exclusive.” Jemma said with a smile, wagging her finger a bit in the air as she said it. She didn’t mean to seem conceited, but Jemma knew she was attractive, plenty of men had ogled her in the hospital and outside of it before, so the joke was warranted. She didn’t think Daisy was sexist either, but it was rare for someone to find it normal for someone- a woman- to have brains and beauty. “You’re not bad yourself, Private Johnson.” Jemma caught her bottom lip between her teeth against her better judgement as she glanced over Daisy’s features.

Daisy snickered and put her hands up in surrender. “It’s true they’re not...but rarely do they come together so successfully,” She retorted with an admittedly somewhat cheeky grin. She reached for her glass and took a drink. Her ears flushed deep pink but thankfully her cheeks were just a light shade of it. “I’m glad you could see past my earlier, oblivious assumptions when we first met to see I’m not so bad, even if Hunter’s the one who sent me,” Her eyes dropped to Jemma’s mouth with the way she pulled her lip between her teeth before they shifted back to Jemma’s eyes. 

“Well I for one am glad you found me.” Jemma said this carefully, trying to gauge Daisy’s reaction by her facial expression. She took a quick drink for courage and moved her hand to rest on Daisy’s leg, just above the knee. She was aware that they’d both been flirting on and off since the moment Daisy pulled her aside in the hall, but casual flirting and actually trying to make a move on someone were very different things, especially when that person was the same sex. Jemma had learned from experience that some women flirted naturally in a friendly way, and it didn’t necessarily mean they wanted anything, but something was different about Daisy. She had that glint in her eye and, yes, a bit of an irresistible charm. Daisy had made herself clear, in Jemma’s opinion, when she’d pulled her closer outside. Now it was time for Jemma to let Daisy know she also felt a force pulling them together.

Daisy’s gaze didn’t leave Jemma’s but she felt the heat leave her face to migrate elsewhere when Jemma’s hand came to rest on her leg. She needed no further hints from Jemma then that touch and before she could give her brain a chance to talk her out of it, Daisy’s eyes shifted to Jemma’s lips then back to her eyes and she started leaning toward the doctor in a way that made it hands down absolutely clear that she was planning on going in for a kiss. The only alarm bell that was going off in her head was that this was not a thing that the two of them in particular should be doing in public. There were a lot of places - most places, really - where the two of them kissing could put them in a lot of danger and Daisy had no idea what scale of danger such a thing was in London. She wasn’t going to shy away, though, unless Jemma decided last minute that this wasn’t what she wanted for whatever reason. 

When Daisy’s eyes flicked back up, Jemma knew exactly what Daisy’s intentions were and Jemma was already leaning in before her brain even gave her body permission. Her free hand came up and gently cradled Daisy’s cheek, tilting her head even as Jemma got closer. Their noses brushed together and Jemma inhaled sharply, lips slightly parted, not quite sure what she was expecting, but guessing it was going to be very good. Daisy’s breath was hot against her cheeks and Jemma could smell the alcohol on Daisy’s lips, and she swore, just the smell alone made her feel intoxicated when she was this close to Daisy. She closed her eyes, leaned in, and then she heard it.    
  
A wailing sound tore across the entirety of London, and while many would have been startled, Jemma made a sad exhale and froze for a moment before she released her hold on Daisy, bringing her hands back to herself. She took a large swallow of her drink while everyone else in the pub started to shuffle around and get up, gathering their things and preparing to go to the shelter.   
  
“They’re coming.” Jemma told Daisy bluntly. She was sure for a newcomer the sound of the siren was eery, blasting across the night with both intensity and echo, changing pitch like a crying infant. This was the first raid in a few days and Jemma just had a feeling it was going to be a bad one. “I need to get to the hospital.”

Daisy’s heart was already beating about her rib cage like a jackhammer by the time the sirens wailed. She was a bit caught up and overly dazed with the lightheaded rush of lust that had fogged over her brain. Her body jumped a bit, spine straightened but her cheek remained pressed against Jemma’s palm even as her pupils dilated further than they had in the moments leading up to the kiss that didn’t happen. She’d heard the sirens before, in the far distance as she’d traveled to get to London itself and before that while watching news reels at the cinema. It was completely different in person, much louder. The patrons around them groaned and Daisy leaned back on the stool, glancing around to see the others’ reactions, a hand still resting along Jemma’s hip where it had found its way moments before the siren. She blinked, still a bit stunned from the stark juxtaposition of the two moments. 

Jemma’s voice brought her back from her initial haze and the follow-up panic about this new development. She hadn’t experienced what this would be like. She’d talked to countless people. She’d heard tons of descriptions. She’d seen the shaky black and white video clips. None of it did justice to this screeching cacophony of sound. “I’ll go with you,” she didn’t like the idea of trying to make it back across town in the dark with the knowledge that planes were about to drop explosives on them but, if Jemma needed to get to the hospital, Daisy wasn’t going to just send her off on her own. She reached behind her for the helmet hooked to her rucksack and pulled it free. Without hesitation, she brought it up and put it on Jemma’s head instead of her own, hands immediately going to reach for the strap to hook it properly into place under Jemma’s chin. 

Jemma smiled sheepishly at Daisy, knowing that if a bomb hit close enough for her to need a helmet it wasn’t going to make a damn bit of a difference, but she was grateful for the gesture anyway. To thank her without words, Jemma gave Daisy’s hand a quick squeeze as people maneuvered around them to get outside and head to the nearest shelter.   
  
“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Charlie asked Jemma and Daisy, but Jemma solemnly shook her head no.   
  
“I’m about to be needed very badly, I’m sure.” Jemma said just loudly enough to be heard over the sirens. Charlie nodded and pushed at the backs of his customers to get them out of the door. The pub was empty, and Jemma was left with only minutes to prepare Daisy for what was to come.    
  
“First they’re going to drop incendiaries. They act as flares and will set anything and everything around them on fire.” Jemma started, grabbing onto Daisy’s shoulders and making uninterrupted eye contact with her. “If you are close to one, throw something over it to put it out. It will help prevent fire.” Jemma started to unbutton the thick outer layer of Daisy’s uniform so they’d be able to use it to smother the fires before they started. “Once London is bright enough, hell rains down on Earth.” Jemma finished unbuttoning Daisy’s uniform, leaving her in an undershirt, and pushed it back over her shoulders. “The goal is to run during the incendiary drops without getting caught in any fires and arrive at the hospital before the explosions begin. Are you with me?” Jemma gently shook Daisy’s shoulders to make sure she was present.

If the sirens hadn’t been going off, Daisy most certainly would have been cracking jokes about Jemma undressing her. As it stood, she knew as Jemma spoke why she was opening the buttons on her jacket. Daisy’s fingers went to work on the waist buckle for her rucksack and the shoulder straps. She shrugged out of them and rehooked it over her undershirt, hooking it into place and tightening the straps. She grabbed at some towels that Charlie left behind on the bar and tucked them quickly into her oversized pockets. She heard every word Jemma said even though her eyes were a bit wide and overwhelmed as her mind raced with thoughts. Jemma shook her while she was trying to sort out the useful from the useless of her reeling and churning thoughts. She nodded. “Snuff out close incendiaries, run like the devil’s chasing you otherwise,” She blurted. “I’m with you,” She added to clarify and gave another nod. She could feel the adrenaline already spiking in her veins and fought the urge to throw up, already bouncing on her toes a bit as she stood there. They could do this. They could make it back there, if they were quick. Would the hospital stay standing through the night though once they made it back? That might be a different story. Daisy did what little she could to prepare herself for what she was about to experience, knowing full well that in reality there was just no way to prepare. 

“Perfect. Let’s go.” Jemma said, even though nothing about this situation was perfect. They were about to run through a literal war zone that was about to be bombed and all they had was the helmet Daisy put on Jemma’s head and the coat to put out small fires.    
  
When Jemma burst out of the front doors of the pub into the darkness, the first thing that hit her was the chill. Then it was the sound of plane engines, for once drowning out the sirens.   
  
“Go, go!” Jemma shouted, ignoring all the people moving about in different directions trying to get to their shelters. She only hoped she didn’t have to see any of them in the hospital any time soon. As for Daisy, Jemma never let go of her hand. She didn’t know what kinds of things Daisy had been through in her life, but she knew this was likely a new, scary experience, and Jemma was exposed to this, so she led the way. About fifty yards into the run, Jemma skidded to a stop and Daisy nearly crashed into her from behind. A faint whistling sound had caught her attention and Jemma grabbed Daisy by the upper arm and pulled her to the side of the building they were next to, ducking behind a dumpster. Thankfully the object that had come from the sky and landed where they had previously been standing was just an incendiary. Had they skipped that phase and used only explosives, they would probably already be dead.   
  
“Daisy, the coat!” Jemma held her hand out for the object of clothing and grabbed it, running right out into the street and stamping out the flare before it could start spraying sparks everywhere and lighting anything nearby on fire. “Keep going!” Jemma shouted the minuted it was out. She grabbed the singed coat and came back to Daisy, urging her to keep moving.

One thing Daisy had learned from a very young age was to be quick. Sprinting, she could do. Long runs, she could handle those too. She focused on gulping down air as she raced after Jemma, careful not to trip them up when there was already darkness to contend with. She knew that would be the case for long once the fires started. Then it’d be a different problem altogether. She heard the whistles from the shelter volunteers as they tried to direct people to get them off the street and to what they hoped would be safety underground. She heard the even louder blare of the sirens as they went off, heard the heavy explosive sound of anti-aircraft artillery as it was shelled upward into the air at incoming planes. Despite the sounds and the sights that she could see, Daisy kept pace easily with Jemma. She would have run them faster but she didn’t remember the way without light to guide them and Jemma did so Jemma would have to stick in lead. 

When Jemma skidded to a stop, Daisy barely managed to avoid crashing into her. She looked up at the sky as she puffed out gasps out wispy white air, her breath having turned the color in the cold, which she hadn’t noticed in the rush until that moment. She heard the whistling sound and her eyes widened and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground tucked behind a dumpster. Honestly, at that point, Daisy was expecting explosions. Without thinking about it, she pushed her back toward Jemma, tucking the doctor tighter between the wall and the dumpster, as if that would somehow provide protection from multi-ton bombs. 

There was a loud metal clanking sound that echoed off the walls and suddenly Jemma was shouting for the jacket as a bright phosphorus white light lit up the street and alleyway around them. Daisy jammed the coat into Jemma’s hand and was only a split second behind Jemma running out into the street. She raced along with Jemma, yanking the towels from her pockets so they’d be ready when she needed them to drop on the flaring incendiaries along the way. She couldn’t up but cast her eyes upwards every now and then as they went. She tossed a towel down on one of the dozens and dozens of incendiaries that were landing all around them and just as she stomped it out, a woman and dragging young, shaking and bleary-eyed children by their hands tripped over with her own feet or the kids’ feet or just the shit all over the street and toppled to the ground. The kids were wailing and the mother was trying to console them and get them to their feet. Daisy grabbed up the towel and raced toward them.

One of the incendiaries landed right behind the little boy that fell and flared to life immediately. The boy screamed. Daisy slapped the towel down on it and stomped on it as she leaned over to pull the boy up before the sparks could catch his arms or legs. She handed the toddler over to the mother and urged them to keep moving onward as she grabbed up the towel she’d thrown down. She turned to locate Jemma then and let her instincts mostly take over as her feet carried her back to the doctor. “How long?” She shouted. “How long after they drop these do the bombs come?” They couldn’t keep stopping to stomp out the flares if they intended to make it to the hospital, could they? Surely that would only delay them too much. Could they really leave the incendiaries to burn, though? It was a lose/lose situation, Daisy knew it. 

“Not long enough.” Jemma shook her head and grabbed for Daisy’s hand again, continuing their run even after Jemma watched and admired Daisy’s rescue of the family with children. Her feet ached in her flats and her muscles screamed at her to stop, but Jemma kept going, holding an elbow in front of her face to block out any smoke and pulling Daisy behind her. They had stopped for the first few incendiaries, but soon they were coming down in volleys and Jemma pulled them against the brick wall of a tall building to avoid a direct hit when dozens of them whistled through the chilly night air and spewed sparks all over streets and rooftops. The black night sky was soon orange and red with flames and occasionally planes could be seen among the smoke. Above the layers of clouds Nazi planes could be seen in droves, like a terrible flock of birds migrating for the winter, but the loads they were raining down on London was a lot worse than some droppings on a statue or a car.   
  
“Stop for a minute!” Jemma called over the chaos, pulling Daisy aside and leaning against a brick wall again a few moments later. Her hand released Daisy’s and she pulled the edge of her skirt up to her face, coughing and hacking into it. For Daisy the effects may not be as bad yet, but this was not Jemma’s first run-in with smoke inhalation.

There were just so many of them. Detailed first hand accounts did no justice to the sheer volume of the canisters falling and landing all around them. She leaned her head back and looked up, having pulled the material of the collar of her shirt up over her mouth and nose against the smoke rising up around them. Her weight shifted, leaning slightly into Jemma’s side as her eyes picked out the scores and scores of planes in the searchlights and orange glow of the flames. It struck her, the sound that seemed to roar up when the incendiary spars caught and began flicking buildings to life in flames. 

Daisy looked over as Jemma coughed and it struck her in a more corporeal and visceral way that she hadn’t experienced since her teen years surviving the city, that they were really probably going to die tonight. When Jemma looked her way, Daisy just reacted. She let go of her shirt against her mouth and nose, reached out with both hands, the one with the towels hooked around Jemma’s waist and the other dropped to the side of Jemma’s neck and the back of her jaw and drew her in. She didn’t let the sirens interrupt their kiss this time, nor did she let the clanking sound of landing incendiaries or roaring flames down the street. She brought her mouth to Jemma’s and kissed her as if...well as if it genuinely might be the last thing she ever did. They might as well go out with a bang if they were going out, right? 

Jemma’s eyes had been squeezed shit, harboring the pain in her chest from the coughing fit, but when there was a break in the wracking coughs, Daisy’s hands were on her and suddenly their mouths were pressed together. Jemma’s eyes flew open in surprise, but slowly fell shut again as she let her entire body sink into the kiss. Her hands framed Daisy’s face and held her cheeks and Jemma stood allowed herself a solid three seconds to just enjoy the kiss in case this was her last opportunity to do so. Then they parted, and Jemma wanted nothing more than to find somewhere safe and hide away with Daisy. Never before had such a selfish feeling washed over her, and it surprised her that she had to fight the urge to abandon everything she worked and believed in. She had to get to the hospital, more than anything.    
  
Jemma stared into Daisy’s eyes for a few moments after the kiss, and her own were watery both from her previous coughing fit and the haunting feeling that this was the first and only time. For just a small piece of time, it was just her and Daisy. There were no sirens, no planes, no fires raging in the streets... just the two of them, staring into each other’s eyes and wondering if they were meant to find each other. Then, as quickly as it came on, the moment was over.   
  
The sharp sound of shattering glass reached their ears through the chaotic mixture of overwhelming, distressing sound, and Jemma’s head whipped around just in time to see a car hardly ten feet from them burst into flames, incendiary spitting out fire on the inside, having claimed the car by breaking through the windshield.   
  
“Run!” Jemma shouted hoarsely, taking up Daisy’s hand again and getting out of the death trap that was them standing in between a burning car and a brick wall. They sprinted as quickly as their legs would take them and as far as their smoke filled lungs would allow, not even turning around when they heard the first explosion of the night as somebody’s car was destroyed when the fire reached the engine. 

Daisy has experience with breathing air filled with pollutants before but the smoke from the fires was acrid, leaving a sour taste behind in her throat as her feet picked up and came down in rapid succession. She could feel it in her sinuses as the water drained from her, leaving behind dry nasal passages, an itchy, scratchy throat and even some cracks along the driest bits of her hands, her knuckles.    
  
The car exploded and Daisy felt the faint ripple of air when the edge of the blast from the explosion pushed them, the air rushing through then and racing beyond to further feed fires. Daisy remembered she was going to need photos. From the pack on her right right side, her free hand pulled free the flat folded camera and it's long strap. She slung it cross ways over herself so she'd have it if a moment struck. Seconds later, Daisy heard a child crying and a mother screaming. She skidded to a stop without thinking which caused her hand to jerk Jemma to a stop from her full on sprint. Daisy dropped Jemma's hand and spun in an unsteady circle as she coughed and sputtered while searching for the source of the screams and cries as she could tell they aren't from street level.    
  
She finally spotted them and pointed. "Over there!" They were leaning out the broken second story window of a home that burning so badly Daisy could see the flame of the roof licking the sky at least ten feet higher than the rooftop itself. The woman sobbed and cried out again for help for her baby. Daisy grabbed the scruff of a firefighter with a water hose as she sprinted by and whirled him around to the woman house o get water blasting at it though it seemed a deeply futile act. She skidded to a stop again, positioned under the window where the woman was gripping her child by her wrists and the kid wailed in fear and squirmed, legs dangling.    
  
Daisy cupped her hands to her mouth and hoarsely screamed as loud as she could. "DROP HER DOWN TO ME!" The woman screamed for help again, clearly panicked and Daisy called put again for her to drop the kid. After twice more back and forth. Daisy scanned the front of the houses. She raced to the closest downspout to the second floor window the woman and her kid were and began to scale what she could of the front of the house, kicking in a window on the first floor to get a foothold until she had managed to make it on top of a small slanted roof over top of the first floor window. She was only a few feet below the dangling child.    
  
"Let her go!" Daisy begged, unsure hen the slanted roof she was on might give way beneath her feet. "Let her go and we'll get you to safety!" She begged. "LET HER GO OR YOU'RE BOTH GOING TO DIE HERE!" On the last word, the woman let her daughter go. Daisy shifted her weight and caught the wailing little girl, who couldn't have been anymore than five or six. "Jemma!" Daisy didn't waste any time. In fact she'd merely trusted that Jemma would move somewhere that would let Daisy be able to pass the child off. Adjusting her grip under the girl's  arm, she located Jemma and did her best to toss the girl carefully into Jemma's waiting arms.    
  
Without waiting, Daisy turned to the window and had to spend a few more minute coaxing her to climb out. Unfortunately both of their weight on the roof was all it took. Daisy heard the wood snapping and only had time to shove the woman off the roof and toward the ground before she disappeared into the first floor of the house. One of the firefighters dropped his hose and rushed to the broken window of the first floor, fighting to climb inside after her.

“Daisy!” Jemma shrieked when she turned around from passing the child to a firefighter and saw Daisy and the mother fall through to the first floor. Her heart constricted in her chest and her muscles locked up, but then suddenly adrenaline rushed through her veins, more than there already was, and she lunged for the entrance to the building, but was stopped by a firefighter as others rushed in to make sure Daisy and the mother got out alright. Thankfully the fire had mostly been in the upper floors since the incendiary came from the roof, so the building’s base had yet to collapse.

When she landed, Daisy thought she was dead. Instead, she was just dazed. Thankfully she hadn't hut her head on anything in the landing but there was a new cut along her left cheek and she felt the warm trace of blood as it started to slip down her cheek. She swiped at it as she pushed herself up, coughing as she did. A quick look around told her she at least wasn't in danger of burning to death but the smoke was blinding. She rolled onto her stomach and forced herself flat to the floor and then began looking around to try and find the windows.    
  
Just as she was deciding she'd go forward and work her way from there, the sound of glass shattering to her left alerted her to the fact that either Jemma of the firefighters were trying to get to her.  Quickly, she turned that way and bean crawling as her eyes stung and watered and her throat became raw, dry and scratchy as if each breath she was inhaling shard of glass. Her lungs felt like they were ready to burst at any moment. She stumbled over the unknown woman’s body on her way and finally moved off her stomach.    
  
Daisy almost collapsed immediately when she stood as her right foot tried to give out on her. A moment later part of the second floor about fifteen feet away collapsed to the first floor which made Daisy drop down on top of the woman, trying to cover both of their heads. The change in temperature was immediate as bits of burning wood were now on the first floor, flames jumping every which way they could. A surge of adrenaline hit Daisy full force. She scrambled to her feet, hook the dead weight of the unconscious woman by her underarms and grunted as she started dragging the woman toward the windows now behind her.   
  
The next few moments after that were a bit of a blur. Two of the firefighters made it inside. She pushed them off of her and made them take the unconscious woman instead and then grabbed the back of one of their coats to follow them to the windows. Daisy climbed out after them, practically throwing herself onto the sidewalk and crawling a good ten feet into the street before she dropped and rolled to her back, coughing harder than she ever thought she had in her in entire life as cold water drenched down her spine from the remnants of the fire hoses and she rasped in the cold winter air, which only proved to make her throat and lungs feel even more like they were burning. These sensations told her she was at least alive. Reality tried to kick in as she spotted more planes and the little glint of their falling incendiary payload still raining down in the orange glow of the sky when she opened her eyes. When Jemma made it to her, Daisy just stared at her with blank we eyes, aware that Jemma was speaking to her as she saw her lips move but Daisy's brow furrowed because she couldn't hear...actually anything right that moment. It was silent. No roar of flames, no sound of her own coughing and gasping for air, no sound from Jemma as she shouted, she couldn't even hear the telltale whistle and tinkering sound as the incendiary canisters landed right then.

“Daisy, can you hear me?!” Jemma tapped at Daisy’s cheeks, but found the woman was unresponsive, still in quite a bit of shock. The firefighters positioned the screaming little girl and her unconscious mother on the ground near the firetruck, and Jemma was torn between trying to get Daisy back and checking on the two of them. The latter won out, since Daisy’s breathing was starting to even out and she seemed physically fine, so she hurried over to the woman and child and checked both of their vitals.   
  
“Are you taking them to the hospital?” Jemma grabbed the shoulder of a firefighter and jerked him away from his hose to get an answer.   
  
“Can’t! No time! If they’re alright they’re staying here and once they get up they should go to a shelter, as should you!” The firefighter yelled over the roar of the planes, flames, and now the hoses. Jemma could feel the heat coming to her face, and not from the city on fire around them, but she knew she couldn’t be angry. There were only so many firefighters and way more fires, so they couldn’t very well expect them to leave their very important jobs if nobody had any life threatening injuries. The mother was just a little scraped up and was slowly gaining consciousness. She would be okay, so the safest thing for her was to get to a shelter. Jemma moved back to the mother and daughter and crouched next to the little girl, who was shaking and crying.   
  
“My name is Jemma, what’s yours?” She asked, putting a hand on the little girl’s shoulder to calm her.    
  
“Sophie.” The little girl replied, voice shaky.   
  
“Do you know where the shelter you and your mum go to normally is?” Jemma asked.   
  
“Yes, it’s that way.” Sophie pointed down the street. There was a sign for it only a few buildings down.   
  
“When your mum wakes up, take her to the shelter, and in the morning, tell her to come get checked out at the hospital, okay? I’m a doctor, I’ll be there tomorrow.” Jemma promised, as if she was certain she would survive the night and actually make it to the hospital to help everyone coming in during and after the bombings. The little girl nodded and sat down in the water by her mother and Jemma hurried back over to Daisy.

Daisy tried to nod but it was fairly imperceptible since she was also kind of shaking at the moment as well as the coughing. She wanted to tell Jemma to go help the others since there was a kid involved but Jemma seemed to already make that decision. While Jemma was with the firefighter and the woman and child, Daisy managed to sit up. She drew her knees up and rested her arms around them, took deep breaths and let her lungs cough out everything they needed to. 

Daisy was moving to stand when Jemma came back. She pushed up with her left foot but when she put weight on her right, she wound up dropping right back down to the ground on her butt, inhaling a hiss of pain as she did. She lifted her right foot up and rolled her foot a few times, gritting her teeth together tightly and grimacing as she tried to loosen it up. It wouldn’t do for running if she couldn’t actually put weight on her foot. “Are they okay?” she asked when Jemma was close enough. A glance in their direction left Daisy feeling uneasy with the little girl and her unconscious mother just sitting in the open of the street by the first truck. It was better than being inside a burning building, granted, but how much better, really?   
  
“They’re okay, are you okay?” Jemma frowned and reached out to cradle Daisy’s cheek, wiping away some of the dripping blood with her thumb. “They’re with the firefighters if anything happens, we need to get moving.” Jemma said, her words gradually speeding up as they came out of her mouth. This felt like more incendiaries than usual and she didn’t know when the real bombs were going to start.    


Daisy nodded but paused when Jemma touched her cheek. She flinched at the wound on her cheek, having forgotten about it. She took a deep shaky breath and nodded again after leaning a bit into Jemma’s palm. She glanced at the woman and her daughter again and felt reluctant to leave them still. “Okay,” she agreed. With one last glance to the firefighters and the injured, she moved to forced herself up to her feet, which supported her this time even if she rested most of her weight on her left leg for now. She knew they couldn’t make it to a shelter or the hospital with the girl and her mother without the mother being conscious. Still, Daisy was struggling fighting the urge to suggest it. “Which way?” She asked it quieter than normal despite the loud noise around them as she looked over at Jemma. 

“Follow me.” Jemma grabbed for Daisy’s hand and hoisted her up to her feet, holding on for a few seconds after Daisy was upright just to make sure she could stand. Her worry for Daisy much outweighed the feeling of urgency to get to the hospital, which was strange, since logic told her the hospital was more important since there were more people there. Once she was sure Daisy was steady, she let go of one of her hands and turned to flee from the fires, running down the middle of the street to avoid any falling debris, although is left them open to things falling from the sky.    
  
They made it another few streets before the first real bomb went off. It was behind them, and it fell with a loud whistling and when the high pitched sound stopped, there was a split second before a deep explosion rattled their eardrums from behind them to the left and the ground trembled beneath their feet even from several blocks over.    
  
“It’s not too far now!” Jemma yelled behind her, but she was panicking. Any moment a bomb could fall in just the right spot and they’d be dead.    
  
More bombs followed, rattling the streets and buildings, setting even more structures on fire. They didn’t have a lot of time and they needed cover soon, so Jemma was willing to take a risk to get to the hospital faster. There was a set of tall buildings on their right that were all connected and stretched about another quarter to half a mile down the street, but there was a single, slender, barely six foot alley between the buildings and Jemma would rather cut through than go all the way around, even though the buildings on both sides of the alley were on fire.    
  
“This way!” Jemma called behind her over a loud crack of an explosive detonation near them. She pulled Daisy toward the alley.

Daisy ran with a slight limp in her gait but she kept pace with Jemma still and didn’t complain. Fear and the resulting adrenaline helped. There was no room for complaint. They didn’t have many choices and Daisy trusted Jemma could get them to the hospital. She wasn’t prepared for the ground to start shaking, though. When it happened, she wondered why she’d never considered it as it nearly took her feet out from under her and she had to scrabble with her hand to make sure she didn’t go tumbling. With all her trust in Jemma, she thought the alley seemed like a good death trap but she followed Jemma down it anyhow. She could only surmise it was a shortcut and hoped they would soon see the hospital. She hoped the hospital would prove a decent enough shelter once they were there as well since it seemed nothing was off limits as far as the incendiaries and, therefore, the bombs, went. Daisy just tried to keep her feet moving behind Jemma. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so scared in her life and she had no idea how people lived for months on end like this. 

“Keep going, Daisy!” Jemma encouraged her friend, who was clearly in some level of pain. The alley would get them to the hospital sooner, and reduce their risk of death. She’d be able to treat Daisy’s ankle if there weren’t already piles of people with more serious injuries. It was worth the short term risk, Jemma knew it.    
  
The moment they slipped into the alley, a feeling of dread crawled up Jemma’s spine, tingling the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. She shivered despite the intense heat cooking them from the outside in. The fires in both of the buildings surrounding them made the brick walls act as massive heaters, collecting the hot air in the skinny alley.    
  
They made it just over halfway through, working around trash cans and trash bags, even an old mattress with some embers on it. Ash was floating in the air, some of it still carrying small flames and singing Jemma’s uniform when they landed on her. Throughout all the chaos, she heard a tiny whimper and Jemma whirled around, thinking Daisy was hurt, but the sound came from a pile of trash near the entrance to the alley.    
  
“Keep going, make sure the exit is clear, I heard something!” Jemma pushed Daisy in the direction they’d been going to the closer exit while she took a step back in the direction they came from.

Daisy felt the turn in Jemma’s demeanor as the shake in her spine reverberated down her arm to their hands. She squeezed Jemma’s hand in an attempt to try and reassure her. She might not have been very sure about anything herself, but she trusted Jemma’s judgement and wanted her to know it. The coolness of the winter night all but disappeared in the alley and Daisy felt the sweat beginning to beads along her back and forehead. The wind in her face from running had kept the sweat at bay but between the heated buildings it was a different story. 

Daisy did her best dodging around the trash in the alleyway without pivoting too much on her bad ankle. She blinked and almost crashed into Jemma since it was harder to stop with her torqued ankle. “Wha-,” before she could fully ask, Jemma was delivering instructions. Daisy looked up the alleyway, then down it and then up at the flames climbing into the sky form the roofs of the buildings they were running between. Before she could protest, Jemma pushed her in one direction and then ran in the other. “Jem-,” She called but Jemma was already too far away. She chewed on her bottom lip and, with great reluctance and a bad feeling in her gut, she started jogging again, this time at a slower pace, toward the end of the alley closest to her. She made it to the end and looked out into the street. It wasn’t as brightly orange as the street they came from but there were still incendiaries and she was sure bombs would follow soon. 

Turning back toward the alley, she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Clear this way!” She shouted back to Jemma. 

“Give me a minute!” Jemma shouted back, searching over the trash bags and cans for anything that could have made that noise. She could have been hearing things, but if something was alive in here she needed to get it out. Her skin felt like it was melting because of the excessive amount of heat building up between the buildings, so she knew she couldn’t stay long, but beneath a newspaper and between two trash cans she spotted a tuft of fur.    
  
“Hey there little one, come on out...” Jemma said quietly, or as quiet as she could over the screeching and whistling of dropping bombs and the explosions of the ones that hit the earth. She pushed aside a metal trash can only for the scruffy, underweight little dog to scamper underneath a dumpster. “I’m trying to save your life!” Jemma spoke to the dog like it could understand her and got down on her hands and knees, cringing at the heat that nearly singed her palms and knees when they touched the pavement. She glanced down the alley to make sure Daisy was still there and reached under the dumpster, unafraid of being bitten under the circumstances, and grabbed the scruff of the little dog. It whimpered and yowled the whole time Jemma tried to drag him out, and she didn’t even register the crackling sounds getting ever closer, the air getting hotter, and the buildings groaning with the strain.    
  
Just as Jemma got the dog out from underneath the dumpster and held him up for Daisy to see across the alley, the loudest sound Jemma had ever heard, rivaling even a train passing by five feet away, screeched down at them from above. Horror gnawed at Jemma’s insides and the deafening sound went quiet only seconds before the blast, which was just above them and caused bricks and debris to rain down on them. Jemma tucked the squirming dog into herself and curled up for the blast, thankful that she wasn’t immediately killed.   
  
A few seconds went by and Jemma only felt the pain of bricks that had been blasted apart sprinkling down on her, but it was too early to sigh in relief. She got up, looked toward Daisy, and before she knew why, she looked up and to the left. The building’s top floor was blown clean off and the flames engulfed everything except for the brick wall on the alley side. Even that couldn’t stand up to the heat. The mortar between the bricks was melting and Jemma only had a split second of warning when she saw the wall warp and bend.   
  
“DAISY!” Jemma screamed and pointed to the wall, turning tail and sprinting toward the exit closest to her, which was on the opposite side of the alley from Daisy. The wall wobbled for a moment, but ultimately collapsed inward, and Jemma lost sight of her friend as the wall gave away and dust clouded the air with the smoke and ash, leaving a massive pile of rubble. Jemma’s mind went blank and then suddenly in her mind’s eye she saw Ace, having her soldier dig through the rubble. What if Daisy was the soldier under the rubble?    
  
“Daisy!” Jemma screamed again, but the number of explosions was increasing by the second, as if the city was pot of popcorn and the time between the blasts was diminished.

“JEMMA!” Daisy screamed it as the first blast knocked her off her feet. She scrambled back up, charring parts of her palms on the heated brick as she made it to her feet. She started down the alley, screamed Jemma’s name again as Jemma took off the opposite way down the alley. She looked up at the wall and saw it wobbling. “JEMMA!!” She screamed, having no other recourse but to rush back out the end of the alley she was near to avoid falling brick and ash clouds of doom. 

When she turned back around after making it to the street, she coughed and rasped, squinting through the cloud of dust. The rubble was piled almost taller than Daisy’s head. She screamed for Jemma and some firefighters heard her and came running, one with a hose. They directed it to the alleyway and one of the firefighters yanked Daisy away from the edge of the rubble, where she’d started dragging bits off it free while she yelled for Jemma, drowned out by the blasts. 

Jemma couldn’t hear anything over the intense explosions that rattled everything around them and made the earth grumble and groan, seemingly shifting underneath buildings. She held the little dog close to her chest and backed away from the blast, coughing and sputtering because of the smoke, ash, and dust. She thought she saw Daisy get to the other side before the wall collapsed, but she wasn’t sure and the uncertainty of it made Jemma’s ribs ache from her pounding heart. Daisy wasn’t a Londoner, she might not know where the hospital was or how to get back to where they were; they didn’t have a meeting place. Which meant Jemma needed to get to the other side of that alley before Daisy left. Climbing over wasn’t an option; the massive pile was on fire at the top and broken glass sprinkled the top if the rubble like powdered sugar, making it impossible to get through. Going around would take too long, so Jemma figured she’d go through the building bordering the alley that hadn’t collapsed. All the buildings were on fire down the entire street, so no choice was better than any other when it came to picking a building.  
  
Using the bottom of her skirt to avoid cutting herself, Jemma picked up a stray brick from the collapse and with the dog tucked under her other arm, threw the brick at a window on the building by the alley. She carefully climbed through, though not without ripping up her uniform. It hardly mattered; the dress that was once white was now grey and black, covered in soot and debris, ripped up from the whole ordeal and the glass in the window. The little terrier whimpered, as its instincts probably told it entering the building was a bad idea, but Jemma knew going around was just as dangerous anyway since it meant more exposure before she got to Daisy and finally got them to the hospital.   
  
Once Jemma was inside, she dropped to her hands and knees to avoid the smoke. The dog wriggled out of her arms, but stayed close as Jemma crawled through the establishment, which looked like a dentist’s office, and made her way toward the opposite side of the building. Smoke billowed into the building from the broken window and the crackling and groaning heard beneath the sounds and vibrations of bombs making contact with the city made Jemma crawl faster. She coughed and wheezed, but continued until her lungs burned and her vision blurred. There was too much smoke and ash in her eyes to see properly and she couldn’t find a back window in any of the rooms she’d checked. The ceiling above her was blackened, which meant the fire was on its way down.   
  
The dog barked behind her and Jemma twisted to look, but the terrier dashed off despite Jemma calling for him. She didn’t have time this time to go back for him. She could feel the building’s vibrations beneath her fingertips and knew it was going to give out soon. She gave up on crawling and got to her feet, frantically running around and checking rooms for windows. None were facing the side of the building she needed to get to.   
  
In all of the mind numbing chaos, Jemma heard the distant sound of frantic barking through the ringing in her ears and turned to follow on a whim. The dog led her to the stairs, and Jemma got a harsh rush of adrenaline and instinctively threw herself into the area under the flight of stairs when a bomb dropped closer than even the one that collapsed the alley and the crackling and snapping of wood reached Jemma’s ears just as the building began to come down on her. All she could do was throw her arms up to cover her head and neck and hope for the best.  
  
Daisy struggled against a firefighter that dragged her away from the rubble of the alley. They were only a few feet away from it when another bomb shook the ground under them, knocking them both to the ground along with the others who were spraying hoses at the fire. Daisy scrambled to her feet and rushed back toward the burning rubble. She screamed Jemma’s name a few more time but could hear nothing but the loud whistling of the bombs landing all over the city. She tried to scale the rubble but it was unstable and shifted under her feet every time she tried and she just wound up on her ass in the street again each time. 

With each passing second that she didn’t hear Jemma or that Jemma didn’t appear, Daisy’s heart beat faster and faster. Would Jemma have even been in the streets right now if it wasn’t for having been with Daisy? Would she still be at the hospital? Would she have been at home and making her way down some other path, quicker and already back to the hospital? Daisy became frantic as the adrenaline coursed through her with the need to find Jemma before it was too late. She raced up the stairs of the closest standing house only to be tackled back down by the fire fighter who didn’t want to let her into any of the house burning in the inferno. By the time Dais wrestled free, the entire block was on fire and the buildings were all swaying at different degrees. The firefighter dragged her further across the street just before the houses all began to collapse like dominoes. 

“JEMMA!!!” Daisy screamed above the roar of fire that crackled up toward the dark sky in the wake of the collapsing rubble. The collapse itself actually served to put out some of the fire along the block. The Firefighters worked to keep dousing the rubble with the fire hoses to put the rest out. Daisy found herself sitting in the street, shell shocked and shaking at she stared at the rubble without a clue where Jemma was or how to find her. Was she under the rubble? Had she made it out? What about the other....the other side of the block!!! 

Daisy clawed her way to her feet and raced, partially hobbled by her injured ankle. She kept going until she found somewhere in the rubble and the burning buildings to cut around the block, counting paces as she ran so she’d know how far to try and go up the next block. “Jemma!!” she called it repeatedly as she ran, occasionally tossed unsteady or off her feet by explosions. It took a long time to make it around the corner and to started trying to get up the street. Firefighters, whenever she encountered them kept trying to stop her and send her away. Daisy frantically kept searching for Jemma and when she could she dug into hot burning rubble piles with her bear hands. 


	3. Sleeves Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Graphic description of injuries 
> 
> Here's Part 2, the conclusion of one of our shortest joint ventures!   
> Have at it!   
> Let us know what you think! Or not, your choice! <3   
> :D
> 
> ____________

At some point in the night the bombs stopped. The All Clear was sounded but Daisy was oblivious to it by then. Soon enough the firefighters managed to get put out enough fires to get ahead of them. Eventually, the sun started to rise and the people who had ventured out of the shelters that weren’t destroyed began to aid in the search for survivors and/or bodies. Daisy was still working by that point. She was covered in soot from head to toe but for the streaks of cheek and chin cleared by her near continual flow of tears or from beads of sweat. Her arms were smattered in soot and varying burn splotches ranging from first degree burns to third degrees burns from ignoring the heat level of the rubble she was digging through. All she knew was that she needed to find Jemma. 

Sometime when the sky was still streaked with blues, oranges and pinks of the morning, Daisy sunk to her knees in the middle of the rubble where she was at, ignoring the heat that pressed through the holes in the knees of her pants and fought to catch her breath. She just needed to breathe. She would allow herself thirty seconds and then she would keep working. She counted in her head, breathing deeply as she went.  _ One…two...three....four... _ She would allow herself thirty second and no more. She  _ would _ find Jemma. She would find Jemma  _ alive _ ...she  _ had _ to find Jemma. 

“I found a body!” A female voice called out from a little ways down the street. She seemed to be the only female firefighter in the entirety of London, nobody really cared who pulled people out of the rubble after the bombs as long as it got done. Hell, even civilians moved about helping and looking for their own lost friends and family.

‘ _ Body _ ’ was the worst word in the English language whether it was being said with an American or a British accent. Daisy’s count cut off and her head whipped in the direction of the woman’s voice as her heart jumped into her throat. She sat motionless for at least three seconds, during which Daisy was sure her heart had stopped beating, before she was suddenly in motion. She had to know. Whatever the case may be, she had to know and she wasn’t leaving this street length of rubble until she saw Jemma - alive or dead - with her own eyes. The tears still steadily streaked her cheeks and dropped off her chin as she made it to the other woman and started pulling at the rubble to help clear the rubble from the body that had been found. Daisy was looking for a couple of things, one of them was the helmet she’d tied to Jemma’s head, one were the particular shoes Jemma had been wearing, the other was that damn dog she had run back for. She did not realize at all that she was murmuring under her breath, asking any and every deity she’d ever heard of that this body wasn’t Jemma as she became more and more aware that it was indeed a body and it was not going to be a living one. 

“Oh, hell.” The woman sighed when she saw more skin- or lack thereof, really- on the body. The entire corpse was a charred, blackened surface of melted skin, muscle, and other tissue. The body was burnt beyond recognition, with no face or any clothes to identify them.    
  
“Looks like a woman, maybe late twenties, early thirties.” The woman called out to her coworkers. Her American accent gave away that she wasn’t from here, but part of a volunteer force.    
  
“Are you looking for someone?” Bobbi asked, trying to interrupt what looked like a panic attack in the woman who was suddenly helping her dig through the rubble in a frantic haze. “My name’s Bobbi, I’m a volunteer search and rescuer, if someone is missing I can take a description, but the best place to check is the hospital.” She could tell something was off, since the panic-stricken woman was clearly not a soldier, but dressed in uniform. She didn’t know what the situation was, but it wasn’t something that Bobbi really needed to know. Her job was to dig people out, that was all. 

Daisy felt the air suck right out of her between the vision of the charred mass and the woman calling out what they thought the body belonged to since it fit for Jemma’s basic description. She sunk back to sit on her heels and felt her own hand as it came up to her chest, trying to feel of her own chest was moving to take air in an out. It was. Her heart was beating. She was alive. She was nearly hyperventilating as she slipped from sitting on her heels to merely sitting in the rubble next to the charred body, staring at it through the blur of her tears as if staring would either tell her for sure that this was Jemma or would somehow rollback the hours to let her fix this. 

When the woman, Bobbi, began speaking to her, Daisy just stared at her blankly, not quite processing all of that or the fact that Bobbi had an American accent. In her exhaustion and emotion, she only registered that Bobbi was asking her if she was looking for someone. “J-Jemma,” She croaked out through vocal chords that didn’t quite work anymore, dehydrated, tongue swollen, hoarse from smoke inhalation and just abused from screaming for Jemma all night. She couldn’t make a description or rasp out anything else; just that pathetic, resigned, ‘Jemma.’ But this body might be Jemma and there was no way Daisy was ever going to know for sure. She hung her head down, ashamed of herself for not having done more to get Jemma to the hospital safely. Maybe if they hadn’t stopped at the house to help the woman and her child, maybe if Daisy hadn’t stopped a time or two to snap a photo - maybe if they’d just kept running and ignored everything else, maybe they’d have made it to the hospital. Her shoulders shook and she felt what she thought for sure was the last of her energy escaping her in the form of a few shoulder wracking sobs. 

“You don’t... happen to mean Jemma Simmons, do you?” Bobbi asked carefully. It was wrong of her to ask, she knew, but the idea that the body in front of her was someone she knew was a whole different ball game. She was used to stomaching death, but trying to stare into the melted, blackened face of the victim in the rubble and trying to identify Jemma’s traits made her nauseous.

Daisy’s head shot up, eyes wide as she swiped her forearm quickly across her wet eyes before her hands had gathered bits of the front of Bobbi’s jacket in her fists, almost rolling right back to her knees as she reached for her. “Did you see her?” Daisy asked, only because she wanted it to be the case instead of the reality that lay in front of the both of them. “The doctor, did you see - did she make it out the other side??” It was possible, right? It was possible that it could have happened. If Jemma made it out the other side, she probably would have been barking orders at firefighters to dig people out and get them to the hospital. Right? She’d go right into doing her duties. She’d feel obligated. Yeah. That was how this woman knew Jemma’s last name. It had to be. It didn’t make sense otherwise. 

“No, I-“ Bobbi started to answer and then looked down at the body in horror. Whoever this woman was that was grabbing her jacket was looking for Jemma, and if she was here that meant the body could be- no, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.   
  
“She’s my boyfriend’s cousin, she can’t be-“ Bobbi pulled the woman’s hands free and got down on her hands and knees by the body, looking for any clues as to the identity of the victim. She dug through remnants of burnt clothes and shuffled around rock and brick until finally she found something that hadn’t burned. There was a metal bracelet around the body’s wrist. “Oh thank god.” Bobbi sighed and leaned back on her heels. “Victim was diabetic.” She felt bad that someone else was dead, but she was selfishly glad it wasn’t Jemma.

Daisy blinked, startled when Bobbi pulled free. It took her brain a moment to process that. “Hunter?” She didn’t really have time to put more thought into it as she moved to help clear some more of the rubble and bricks to try and help Bobbi find whatever she was searching for. Daisy was still in quite a bit of a haze when Bobbi came up with the bracelet but by the way she sighed and spoke, Daisy felt her heart starting to pound again. There were so many emotions were cycling through her over and over again as this hadn’t been the first  body found, though it had been the closest in discernible description to Jemma so far. Daisy felt simultaneously hopeful and bleakly queasy. “S-So...so it’s not…?” She was afraid to fully ask the question. If it wasn’t Jemma, where would they find Jemma...or her body? Would it look like this? Had she suffered for long or had she suffocated first? Daisy’s mind had been in a constant state of turning over these kinds of thoughts steadily for so many hours she’d lost track. 

“No, it’s not her.” Bobbi shook her head and took a deep breath. She reached out for Daisy’s arm and got her up onto her feet to lead her away while the other rescuers continued to dig out the body and prepare it to be moved. “So you and Jemma were out here... where did you last see her?” Bobbi asked. She could tell it had been somewhere in the area since the woman seemed to refuse to leave, but if they were going to find Jemma with any hope of her still being alive it needed to be soon.   
  
“Is that your dog?” Bobbi blurted before Jemma’s friend in uniform could even answer. A small, scruffy, blonde little dog that was covered in ash and soot was sniffing around a nearby pile of rubble, occasionally looking up to glance at them.

Daisy limped slightly as Bobbi led her away from that particular pile, though Daisy didn’t let her go too far. She took a few steadying breaths and scolded herself to pull it together. Yes, she was tired. Yes, she was more than upset, she felt guilty and ashamed that this had happened to Jemma and that she was still standing. The people helping, Bobbi, even, she imagined, had been doing this for weeks, months even. They were all calm and Daisy...she needed to hold it together. “We were in the alley and she…” She said, though she knew there was no way to tell where that alley was anymore. 

Daisy spun around and looked in the direction Bobbi indicated. Her eyes widened when she spotted the dog whining, sniffing at the rubble, digging at it uselessly and then looking at them. When the dog realized Daisy looked their way, it barked, raced a few feet toward them and then raced back to the spot it was circling. “Jemma,” Daisy, again, was in motion before she had fully processed it all. She dropped in front of the rubble the dog was snuffling at and began digging as soon as her hands and knees hit the spot in front of that particular pile. She had no idea what they’d find under there, it might look like the body they’d just found, but...but no matter what, Daisy wasn’t leaving this block until she found Jemma. 

“Come help dig over here!” Bobbi shouted out to her comrades when Daisy started furiously digging. There was something she didn’t know and the dog meant something, so she scooped it up and passed it to a firefighter before joining Daisy in digging through the mess, albeit a little more carefully. Bobbi’s whole crew started combing through the entire area, and after about half an hour of futile digging with no results, there was a call from about ten yards away from one of Bobbi’s men.    
  
“I found a pulse!” The man shouted. He was waist deep in rubble and disappeared below the ridge of it.    
  
“That means someone’s alive!” Bobbi grabbed Daisy again and gently shook her to get her attention if they didn’t already have it.

Oh, they had her attention alright but Daisy was staring in the direction of the man that disappeared, afraid that if she went over, it wouldn’t be Jemma. But Daisy had to know either way and the person they had over there had a pulse, they were alive. She tried to brace herself in case it wasn’t Jemma and quickly made her way over to the small dip in the rubble. When she reached the edge of it, the first thing she spotted was the her helmet, the one she’d tied to Jemma’s head back in the bar so many hours ago. “Jemma!” She moved quickly, but much more carefully this time as she made it over the ridge. She felt a flood of fresh tears sting her eyes as they worked on moving more of the debris from her chest down. It was definitely Jemma - and she was breathing!! It was a shallow wheezing sound but Jemma was breathing and had a pulse! She was a alive!! Daisy didn’t know if she was going to pass out or puke. She wanted to shake Jemma’s shoulder, find her hand and squeeze it, touch her face - anything that might make her open her eyes and speak but she knew she had to be patient and they needed to get Jemma free and move her, get her to the hospital. How close was the hospital from where they were? Were the streets at all passable to get there, even? 

“You need to stay over here.” Bobbi pushed back against Daisy’s shoulders and positioned her a few feet away from Jemma. “We need to dig fast but it needs to be careful, just stay put, we’ll get her out.” Bobbi promised, though it wasn’t something she should really go around saying. Once she was sure Daisy wasn’t going to move, she got to work with her team to get Jemma free. They moved beams, bricks, wood; anything that made up the old London buildings. They worked from her head down, but when they got to her abdomen Bobbi’s face paled and her blood ran cold.    
  
“Bloody hell.” Her crew member muttered under his breath.    
  
“How is she still alive?” Another asked.    
  
“Just get her out, now! Carefully! Someone get the ambulance and medics!” Bobbi ordered, sparing a glance to see how Daisy was doing. There was a two or three foot section of rebar going in Jemma’s back and out her stomach, completely impaling her abdomen and trapping her face down in the mess.

It took what little energy Daisy thought she had left to sit on the sideline and wait. All she wanted to do was help. It was her fault Jemma was in this spot when things collapsed on her. She mght’ve had a better chance without babysitting Daisy. There wasn’t anyone else really to go get help so when Bobbi looked her way in the middle of Daisy’s wide-eyed staring at the rebar impaled through Jemma and Daisy realized no one else had moved, she clawed her way to her feet and ran as if she hadn’t spent the night beating her body up digging through burning rubble, as if she had never fallen through a roof and twisted her ankle, as if she wasn’t dehydrated and undernourished. She ran as if she were sprinting for her own life, but it was Jemma’s she was racing for. Medics and an ambulance. She needed both and they needed it immediately. Daisy was the one who returned with them. 

The next few minutes passed in organized chaos with Bobbi shouting orders and medics mixing in and trying to get their say in on how to remove Jemma from the rubble. They had to free up not only Jemma, but the rebar going through her body, and it took five men to life her onto her side on a stretcher so it didn’t shift the steel bar in Jemma’s gut that was probably holding in all her blood. If they loosened the clot she could bleed out before she even got to the hospital.    
  
“I have no idea who you are, but I have to keep working and you need to go with her.” Bobbi dropped a hand down on Daisy’s shoulder and gave her a firm, reassuring squeeze. She needed to know that someone who knew Jemma personally was on this case when she went to the hospital.    
  
Before Daisy could answer, a loud groaning from the stretcher headed toward the ambulance caught their attention. The groaning got louder and despite everyone trying to calm Jemma down so she didn’t move, she was beginning to shuffle and her groans turned into cries and short lived screams as she became increasingly aware of the foreign object in her abdomen and the pain it brought on.

Daisy wasn’t about to argue. She wasn’t planning on letting that stretcher out of her sight. She was going to thank Bobbi but the commotion from the stretcher pulled her attention. The medics were having trouble calming her down so Daisy pushed her way in and reached out, framed Jemma’s cheeks with her hands. “Jemma,” She tried to sound calm but her voice was laced with a number of emotions. She felt terrified of Jemma’s condition because she had no idea how Jemma would survive it. She felt so relieved that Jemma was breathing and somewhat conscious. She felt awful that Jemma was in such distress and pain, but she was was alive. “Jem...hey,” she tried to keep her voice calm, hoping Jemma might focus on it despite the pain, just long enough to stop her from jolting around. “You gotta calm down now,” she said. “Okay?” She pleaded

Jemma’s eyes flicked this way and that until Daisy’s hands on her cheeks made her gaze settle on Daisy instead of the bar going through her stomach. Tears were in her eyes and she was clearly in pain, but the eye contact between her and Daisy was temporarily keeping her quiet.    
  
“Hurts,” Jemma whimpered. Her teeth ground together and just when the men thought Jemma was calm enough to keep moving, she reached with her own hand and grabbed at the rebar in front of her.

Daisy’s eyes widened. “No, no, no,” Her hand pulled free from Jemma’s cheek and wrapped around Jemma’s wrist before her arm tensed to keep Jemma’s from jostling the rebar. “You can’t do that just yet,” She sniffled. “W-We’re taking you to the hospital,” She swiped her thumb over Jemma’s cheek. “Just hang in there for me okay? We’re almost there,” She said since she knew Jemma was out of it, clearly. 

“No...” Jemma whined, weakly pushing against Daisy’s resistance to get to the rebar with no success. In her state of mind, the only goal was to get the rebar out, even if as a doctor she knew that was a terrible idea. It was what her instincts told her, though, and she was confused because Daisy wouldn’t let her. It didn’t last long, though, because the burning, ripping pain in her stomach finally got to her and her body went limp, eyes closed, and her tense muscles relaxed, making it easier for the medics to strap her to the stretcher and get her into the ambulance to take to the hospital.

Part of Daisy’s mind knew it was better that Jemma was unconscious but that didn’t step the abject fear that burned through her. She reluctantly let go of Jemma so she could back out of the way of the medics until they had Jemma strapped in and had started putting her into the ambulance. When she turned to climb into the back, there was barely enough room with a stretcher on each side, a medic in between. Daisy was going no matter what but she wanted to right in the back with Jemma. Just as she was climbing up to stand between the stretchers, one with Jemma on it and the other with an unconscious teenage boy on it, the dog jumped from the fire truck someone had put it on and raced to Daisy, nipping at the heels of her boots. Daisy frowned at the animal as it circled her and put its paws on her legs. With a bit of a rash decision, she reached down and grabbed the small mutt by the scruff of his neck, pulled him up and tucked him tightly under her arm and finished climbing into the ambulance before one of the volunteers slammed the doors shut behind her. She had just enough room to kneel down between the stretchers with the dog tucked under one arm and her other hand resting along Jemma’s calf as if she needed to reassure herself that Jemma was really there. 

The ride to the hospital was slower than Daisy would have liked but she knew it was because going to fast would lead to jostling and they couldn’t do that with the rebar in Jemma’s abdomen. Daisy remained still and only moved if the medic asked her to do something, which wasn’t often. When they made it to the hospital, Daisy helped them offload the first stretcher with the boy on it, which was then quickly whisked away. Then it was time to unload Jemma’s stretcher. Daisy knew they’d recognize her when they saw her, but she didn’t know what the reactions would be, all she knew was she was holding onto one edge of the stretcher and she was going to follow it wherever it went no matter what. 

“Dr. Simmons?” The doctor that rushed out to greet the ambulance was frozen in stunned silence for a few moments before the paramedics shook his shoulder and got him back into gear. The two stretchers were rolled into the hospital doors. It was quiet and mournful outside, but inside the hospital the night’s battle was only beginning. People were screaming, moaning, and crying, and doctors were funneling people into three groups; those with minor injuries, those with life threatening injuries, and those with injuries too extensive to help. The last group was given morphine and allowed to drift off painlessly while the majority of the treatment went to the salvageable group and then the minor injuries during spare time. The unconscious boy with the bump on the head went to the first group, and Jemma was wheeled in the direction of the second and third groups. The minute one of the doctors saw Jemma, he shook his head and the paramedic moved to take Jemma to the third group, but the doctor from outside spoke up.    
  
“It’s Dr. Simmons.” He said sternly, looking back down at Jemma. The other doctor came over and took a second look at her.    
  
“Get her to the OR. She doesn’t have much time.” He changed his mind and sent them in another direction. “Miss, you can’t go past there.” A nurse grabbed Daisy’s elbow and held her back when a team of doctors started wheeling Jemma down a hall.

Daisy stayed by the Jemma’s stretcher on the way in. She knew what those groups meant. Jemma had told her about them. She ground her teeth together and dug her heels into the floor, refusing to move when the paramedic started to wheel Jemma toward the ‘good as dead’ group after the doctor shook his head. She was just inhaling a deep, wheezing breath to demand that he do anything and everything to help Jemma - she survived this long and she deserved more than just to be written off. She’d stood with them and helped them save other people’s lives, she deserved a chance and Daisy was going to make damn sure they gave it to her. She closed her mouth when the other doctor came over to look at Jemma again, waiting for a verdict and preparing to make an unholy amount of commotion if he tried to write her off again. She felt a wave of relief wash over her when he ordered Jemma to the operating room. He was right, Daisy knew, she didn’t have much time. It was a miracle - and Daisy didn’t generally believe in those  but it was a miracle - that she was still alive as it was and Daisy didn’t want to take that for granted. 

Daisy tried to keep going but the nurse tightened her grip on Daisy’s elbow. “I have to go with her,” Daisy insisted, her adrenaline tanking on her at the worst possible moment, making her sway on her feet. She looked over the nurse’s shoulder as Jemma’s stretcher disappeared down the hall through another set of doors. What if that was it? What if that was the last she ever saw of Doctor Jemma Simmons? What if their last conversation had been the one while Jemma was out of it on the stretcher, trying to pull at the rebar? What if? What if? What if? Daisy swayed slightly on her feet. She felt queasy and light headed. She felt the exhaustion hitting her but she also felt her heart still hammering away its panic about Jemma. She looked at the nurse, her eyes clouding once again. “Please,” She begged. “Don’t let them give up on her…” 

“They won’t.” The nurse promised, pulling Daisy back into the waiting area and over to one of the very few open seats. “They may have their reservations, and some of them don’t like her, but the doctors know that Jemma single-handedly turned this place into a sufficient trauma center when the bombings started. She’s saved so many lives they wouldn’t dare let her slip away.” The nurse promised. “Let me get you some water.”

Daisy looked around her. There was...every level of devastation she could fathom and she felt it down into the deepest pores of her bones, in the depths of her soul, on so many levels. She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she lied. She didn’t need to take up resources someone else needed. There was something in the back of her mind telling her that she did at least need water but the rest of her brain sent mixed messages. What if water supplies became interrupted? She didn’t want to waste any. Her eyes searched the room. Had the mother and daughter from the second floor of the burning house made it to the hospital after the mother woke up? Had the firefighters on that block made it through the night? What about the patrons of the bar? Had their shelter survived the night? Were they pulling others from the rubble - were they part of the rubble? 

Daisy pulled herself to her feet after setting the squirming dog down. As if it had read the room and knew it was a somber time, the pup remained quiet but kept close to Daisy’s legs. She was genuinely surprised when she groped her chest and found the strap for her camera. It had survived the night with her. She let it hang to her side and groped around the front pockets of her pack until she came out with her notebook and pencil. She wandered away from the chair and began talking to people. She didn’t started writing immediately. She asked after people’s relatives, ask who they were waiting for, how they were doing. She was very careful to take photos from the corners of the room, just capturing the overall dreary aftermath, the ghostly haunted stares of soot-covered people, the constantly moving nurses, the children who were too scared to play. When it looked like someone she was passing needed help, she tried to get them water or something they needed and if she couldn’t, she found a nurse to notify. She made it to the people who had been deemed unsaveable. Not many of them were awake but for the painful groans they let out. Any that were, she did her best to put her ear to their mouths and make out their last testimonies - messages for relatives that might still be alive, last words, pleas to know they’d be alright. She tried her best to give what little to no comfort she could, unable to sit in a chair and wait for news on whether Jemma would live or die. The puppy followed Daisy everywhere. Occasionally, Daisy would stop and let some of the children pet the dog, give them something else to focus on. 

Eventually, Daisy’s body refused to continue working. She wound up sitting down against one of the walls near the main nurse’s desk, waiting and watching the clock on the wall as it ticked the seconds away. The dog curled up in her lap and went to sleep, thoroughly exhausted from the whole ordeal. Daisy at, then, with her notebook and let the pencil race across the pages of her notebook faster than her brain was properly processing, letting out the entirety of events as they’d unfolded from the day before through to the current moment and her agonizing wait through the purgatory of Jemma’s surgery. 

Most of the nurses and doctors noticed Daisy’s efforts and noted it in case they could repay her later, but there wasn’t much to give at the moment besides putting their best effort into saving Jemma.    
  
It was several hours before a doctor approached Daisy looking quite exhausted. He had a grim look on his face, but it wasn’t easy to tell if it was because he was bearing bad news or because the whole situation was bad. He spied Daisy in the waiting room and cleared his throat behind her to get her attention.    
  
“You’re here for Ms. Simmons?” He asked, just to be sure. He’d never seen the doctor with any friends before.

Daisy startled at the sound. She blinked and looked over, spying the doctor’s shoes first before her eyes traveled up the length of him, taking in every blood splatter that missed his surgery garb and wound up on his regular uniform. She wasn’t sure if those splatters were Jemma’s or someone else’s. Quickly, Daisy shifted the dog from her lap and stood up, folding her pencil into her notebook as she nodded. “Yeah, yes, I mean,” She cleared her throat and nodded. “I am...is she…” Daisy swallowed against the sour bile rising from her empty stomach that prevented her from saying the word. “Is Jemma alive?” she forced the last few words out and tried to brace herself for the answer, though her heart was beating erratically already at the dismal expression on his face. 

“She is.” The doctor answered quickly, wringing out his hands in front of him to work out the stiffness from the long hours of surgery and work. The important thing was that Dr. Simmons made it through the surgery. “We successfully removed the rebar from her abdomen and patched her up. She lost a lot of blood and we had to give her a transfusion. She’s on antibiotics now and as long as she doesn’t manifest an infection she should be alright.” He explained.

The flood of relief that came from those two simple words washed their way through Daisy. Even knowing that they didn’t mean Jemma was out of the woods, they were so powerful that Daisy’s knees buckled and she would have probably sunk right to the floor if it hadn’t been for the doctor and a nearby nurse’s help. “Thank you,” She breathed the words out as if it was the first time she had actually breathed in well over twelve hours. It sure felt like it. She almost started bawling again but just barely managed to hold it off as her hand gripped the material of the doctor’s sleeve after he’d help steady her. “Can I see her?” She knew it was likely Jemma wasn’t awake but she’d already let the nurses keep her from going with the stretcher into surgery. She needed to see Jemma with her own eyes and she needed to sit and wait until Jemma was awake so she would have someone there to let her know that everything was going to be alright. If she was honest with herself, her selfish need to see Jemma breathing with her own eyes was about 70% of the reasoning with the rest being Bobbi’s instructions to stay with her and her want to inform Jemma of all the doctor said and let her see that the dog she’d chased after was also alive and unharmed.

“She’ll be groggy if she even wakes up, but I don’t see why not.” The doctor came close to smiling and turned, waving for Daisy to follow him. The nurse held onto Daisy’s arm to steady her as they walked, just in case, until they finally got to one of the areas sectioned off with curtains and the doctor stopped. This section of the hospital was much more quiet and peaceful; they had already gone through surgery and were on pain medication, keeping them sleepy and quiet. Thankfully, there was no groaning or crying going on here.    
  
“I have to get back to work, call a nurse if you need anything.” The doctor pulled aside the curtain to let Daisy inside and then he and the nurse hurried off to deal with the next case.

Daisy didn’t like the way he threw that ‘if she even wakes up,’ part in there but after what he’d said before she told herself he just meant in this instance so as not to send her brain into another panic spiral. Just as before, the dog followed  close to Daisy’s side, its tail picking up and wagging a bit when they reached inside the curtain and it could smell Jemma’s scent above all the other scents around the hospital. Daisy thanked both the doctor and the nurse and tucked her notebook and pencil away. She almost lost her legs out from under herself again when she saw Jemma in the bed looking like she was just asleep. She pulled her camera around and opened it up, taking just one picture before she collapsed the camera back into itself containing case, took it off and stowed it in her rucksack. Knowing that  she wasn’t going anywhere else, she unhooked the waist belt and chest belt of the rucksack and its side saddle bags and laid it on the floor out of the way against the wall. She found a short, round metal stool and brought it to the side of the bed and then grabbed a stray cloth from a nearby table so she could wipe her hands clean of the grime on them. There was a voice (it was Jemma’s) in the back of her head telling her to wash up before she could see the hospital’s patients, however, so she hesitated on grabbing Jemma’s hand. She reached out and put her hand on Jemma’s sleeve-covered forearm instead, gave it a gentle squeeze. 

She didn’t fight the stray tears that quietly came this time, just let them fall as she watched Jemma’s chest move with every breath she inhaled and exhaled. “Don’t you dare think about going anywhere after all that…” She murmured through a sniffle. 

_________

Jemma woke to the sound of shuffling feet, but when she opened her eyes, all she saw was the pale yellow color of the curtains surrounding her bed. She wasn’t usually the one in the bed, so it was confusing at first to be waking up in one. Then the sharp pain in her abdomen reminded her why she was where she was and her eyebrows furrowed, accompanied by a sharp inhale and a small gasp mixed with a groan. Her hand reached for her stomach and ran along the expanse of her abdomen, glad to find she didn’t have a stick of steel protruding out from her flesh any longer. Once she remembered it all, her eyes widened and her brain got ahead of her. Had Daisy made it out alright-   
  
“Daisy,” Jemma murmured, finally laying eyes on her on her right. She looked a mess, all scratched, bruised, burned, and dirty, but she was there and alive, they both were.

Daisy had been on the metal stool for hours. Long enough for a nurse to come check on her, bring her water and swap it out for a chair. She took a few minutes to stretch, crack her shoulders and her back and shake out the numbness in her legs. She had just sat back down in the chair when Jemma woke up. It startled Daisy after watching Jemma sleep so long that she froze for a second. Her eyes welled over again when she heard her own name as the first word off Jemma’s tongue - Jemma was  _ awake _ ! Jemma was awake and she  _ spoke _ ! 

“Hey, Doc,” She said around the thick lump in her throat. She moved from the seat and leaned over the bed, preparing to lean over and wrap her arms around Jemma in the bed but froze when Jemma protested, which Daisy was so exhausted by that point, she hadn’t expected it at all. 

“You’re an absolute mess.” Jemma frowned, but also concealed a bit of a half chuckle. She would have loved nothing more than to give Daisy a giant hug, but it might not be the best idea at the moment given that it would hurt and Daisy could give her an infection, since Daisy was coated in grime and they were both covered in scrapes, scratches, and burns. “How long have you been sitting here?” She asked. “How long have I been laying here?”

Daisy froze, hovered for a second and then forced herself to lean back and sit back down in the chair, with a sad frown at first but the right corner of her mouth was perched upward because she was so relieved that Jemma was actually awake and enough so to be talking. “I...um...lost track,” She hung her head sheepishly and patted at her pockets until she found a beat up old pocket watch. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and squinted at the clock in a bit of disbelief. She cleared her throat and looked over at Jemma. “We didn’t find you til morning,” she admitted a bit quietly. You’ve been out of surgery for about four hours,” she tried to forced herself not to frown. “You were in surgery for 3 hours,” She said. Night was approaching and Daisy didn’t know quite how she felt about that given what had happened the night before. 

While they talked, the puppy woke up and circled Daisy’s legs. Its tail wagged madly and suddenly it put its paws up on Daisy’s legs and barked at her. Daisy put the watch away and sniffled as she reached down to scoop the mutt up, standing it in her lap so it could see Jemma was awake as well. “He’s been quiet this whole time,” Daisy sniffled quickly and the dog interrupted with another bark, almost like a whine, wanting to pounce on Jemma and lick her face but obviously if Daisy was too dirty, the dog was too. Daisy would have to take a moment to go clean them both off soon. 

“He made it...” Jemma sighed and pressed her head back into the pillow. The whole ordeal hadn’t been for nothing. It had just been for a dog, but at least it was something. “He? She? What is it?” Jemma smiled.

Daisy pulled the shaggy haired dog up by its scruff just to double check and then set him back down in her lap. "Congratulations, it's a boy," she teased with a much smaller than normal crooked smile. She wasn't quite over the trauma. In fact she hadn't even processed it properly on account of how she was waiting for Jemma to come out of it all in tact. She still didn't and wasn't sure she'd ever know if the woman and her child from the house fire survived, or about the pub patrons, the bartender, even those firefighters they'd run into on the way. "He helped us find you," she told Jemma. "He'll need to be cleaned up along with me I guess so we don't contaminate you...he'll need a name too." She scratched behind the dog's ear and set him on the ground so she could get Jemma a glass of water.

“Are we keeping him then?” Jemma asked with a smile. They’d just met a day ago, but for some reason she just blurted it out like them sharing custody of a dog like it was nothing. She didn’t even know what Daisy was going to be doing next, but it just felt like they weren’t going to be splitting up so easily.

Daisy paused as she finished pouring the water. She brought the glass back to Jemma's bed. The whole time, the dog followed her as if she'd commanded him to heel even though she hadn’t. "I think it's more like he's keeping us," she said with an affectionate smile on her face. Daisy didn't know what would come next but for the time being she wasn't planning on going anywhere, at the very, very least not until she was able to get out of bed an move on her own. Daisy held the glass aloft slightly. "Think you can drink this or should I grab a nurse to help you while I go clean us up?" She indicated the dirty pup next to her.

“I can do it.” Jemma nodded and took the glass. She winced when she sat up slightly, but took a sip of the water to show Daisy she was alright. “You two go get cleaned up so I can give you a proper hug.” She ordered, pointing in the direction of the bathroom.

Daisy grimaced in sympathy at Jemma pained cringe. She nodded. "Start thinking of those puppy names," she said before, with a bit of reluctance, she turned and stepped out through the curtain. The dog barked once at Jemma then raced off to catch up with Daisy. On their way heading to the washroom Daisy had previously used only a little more than a day earlier, she told a nurse Jemma was awake and that she and the dog were going to clean off to prevent contamination and asked her to look in on her if she got a chance just in case.    
  
Daisy found a washcloth and a towel in the supply closet and even found a clean shirt she didn't think anyone would necessarily mind her taking. She ducked into the wash room and, first, spent some time with the puppy in the sink, washing the soot and grime out of his fur with the soap on hand. To the mutt's credit, her rolled onto his back in the lukewarm water and put his feet in the air, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as relaxed as could be as if he were being treated to the perfect pampered grooming. It made things a lot easier on Daisy in getting the little guy clean. She let him shake a good deal of the water off once he was done but didn't dry him with the towel yet.    
  
First she had to scrub herself. She took off her military uniform shirt which left her in a tight tank top. The different in colors between her arms and the previously covered skin was stark. Her arms right up almost to her shoulders were covered in a layer of charred black soot on top of scrapes, scans, bruises and smatterings of patches of first to third degrees burns. Her face and hair were covered in the soot as well - everything was covered in it from the digging. The gash on her face had scabbed over and her cheek was also crusted in dried blood among the soot. Daisy turned her discarded uniform shirt inside out. She used it to wipe some of the soot out of her hair and then to get as much of it off of her pants and boots as possible then she tossed the shirt into a trash can.    
  
She washed everything out of her hair leaning over the sink. Then came the harder parts. She scrubbed her face, neck and shoulders clean. Her arms took longer as they hurt the most to scrub but she scrubbed them the way she thought Jemma would have commanded in order to get them properly clean. She was left with extremely tender bright pink flesh that was marled in all different shades of glaring pinks and reds, scabbed over scrapes, burns and some purple bruises. She dried herself off, tied up her hair then used the towel to finish drying off the puppy.    
  
Next, Daisy pulled on the clean brown button down shirt she'd found, glad it was a men's shirt so it was loose and the it had long sleeves on it to cover her wounds. She couldn't hide her hands, which had the worst of it, but it would do. She buttoned the shirt and tucked it into her uniform pants. She threw put whatever needed to be trashed then left the wash room with the dog, dropping the towel and such into a hamper along the way. All told, she looked much better than she felt now. She could bear it, though, in order to stay at Jemma's side while she recovered. When she made it back to Jemma's area of the hospital, she scooped up the dog and walked through the curtain, pushing a smile across her mouth as the dog's tail wagged wildly against her side. "Private Johnson and Unnamed pup reporting for duty," she said.

“Your orders are to come over here and give me a hug.” Jemma waved Daisy over and reached out with her arms, beckoning for Daisy to fall into them. She really needed the comforting pressure of someone holding onto her after everything that happened in the past day. She was just happy to be alive and she owed it in part to Daisy.

Daisy didn't attempt to fight the fond, somewhat overly emotional perhaps, smile that slipped across her mouth. She did, though, set the dog on the floor, selfishly wanting to indulge in that hug by herself with Jemma. With great care, she sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over. Her arms wound around Jemma and though she held on in a way to let Jemma know she wasn't going to move away anytime soon, she was very careful not to squeeze her torso because of the surgical wounds. She buried a kiss into Jemma's hair at the side of her head before leaning her cheek against the side of Jemma's head. "I thought you were gone," she murmured through a shaky exhale, her lips close to Jemma's ear. Her heart was back to jack-hammering and she was sure that if Jemma couldn't hear it, she had to have felt it slamming about in her chest.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Jemma sighed and wrapped her arms up around Daisy’s torso, careful not to pull her IV loose or squeeze Daisy too tightly just in case she’d suffered any injuries. When they parted, Jemma finally caught sight of Daisy’s marled hands and a small gasp escaped her lungs. “Daisy, your hands.” Jemma reached out and carefully cradled one of Daisy’s hands in her own, gently caressing the few places that weren’t covered in wounds with her thumb. “You need to have these taken care of.” Jemma insisted.

Daisy frowned and dropped her eyes to her hands after biting at the inside of her cheek to avoid flinching when Jemma reached for her hand, glad she couldn’t see the rest of her arms. She shook her head without looking up. “They’re helping people worse than me, I’m fine,” She insisted quickly with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and a quick shake of her head. Daisy had definitely seen a lot in the long hours she’d spent digging through the rubble. She knew some of those burns were bad but she knew they were nothing compared to so many other injuries in the hospital right now and she didn’t want to take up resources, especially when they were already down a doctor for the time being. 

“Well there’s one doctor who’s not busy.” Jemma pointed out. She called over a nurse that passed by and gave her a few instructions. A few minutes later, she came by with a small tray of supplies and put it on the table next to Jemma’s bed.    
  
“Sleeves up.” Jemma ordered with a firm tone and a quirk of an eyebrow, like she was daring Daisy not to listen.

"Jem, really it's no big-," Before she even knew it, the nurse had come back with all the things Jemma requested. Daisy felt her eyes burn a moment and quickly blinked as she glanced back down at her hands. Jemma had just had a giant steel/iron rod removed from her body, had been given a blood transfusion, she should have been resting, maybe eating a bit and and sleeping some more. She shouldn't been tending to Daisy’s minor, unimportant wounds. She didn't know why, but she didn't want Jemma to see the injuries, didn't want her to stress her out after she'd had such a close call.   
  
Daisy fought against it, because she knew it was a tell, but wound up chewing anxiously on her bottom lip and giving herself away. "Jem, really," she tried again, trying to sound as nonchalant and easy about it as possible. "You just had major surgery. I'm the one who should be doing the fussing over you," she pointed out with a smirk. Truth be told, after looking them over in the wash room, Daisy wasn't sure she wanted to see the marks all over her arms again.

“Well I’m the doctor, let me do my job.” Jemma huffed and grabbed for one of Daisy’s wrists, pulling her closer and quickly, but gently sliding up her sleeve. When she did, tears brimmed in Jemma’s eyes, despite being used to the carnage of the bombings. It was different when the wounds were on Daisy, and when they were inflicted because Daisy had probably been searching for her. “Let me help.” Jemma pleaded. She looked back up to Daisy’s eyes and took a deep breath to keep her composure.

Daisy flinched as Jemma pulled her arm forward and she was infinitely glad the shirt was a bit over-sized as the sleeve pushed upward. She dropped her eyes to her arm and felt her thoughts shift away from the current moment and drift back to the long hours overnight, hearing the his sound when skin hit brick or wood still overheated as it seared her skin but continuing to dig because she had to find Jemma, whatever the cost of it. There were old scars in there among the burns, faded now, resulting from the factories she worked in as a child after her parents were gone. She wondered, when she'd looked at her arms in the wash room, which scars she'd wind up disgusted with more once it was all over.    
  
Daisy became lost in the panic of those hours through the night, not sure if more planes would come with more bombs and unwilling to leave to find herself safety. She managed to nod to Jemma since she couldn't speak around the lump she suddenly found in her throat. She tried to relax at least her arms but she couldn't quite seem to release the tension. Her heart sped up as the memories flickered across her mind like a movie real of horrific visions - the incendiaries, the mother and daughter hanging out the window of their burning house, the bleak blackness of being stuck in the first floor of the burning home, the unconscious mother and girl who might be dead by now and she'd probably never know, the firefighters  - some still fighting fires even after their mostly plastic trousers had melted into the flesh of their legs - and the bodies. There had been so many of them, not least of which had been the charred woman that she'd initially thought was Jemma when Bobbi first found her and gave off a vague description. A small tremor rolled down Daisy's spine as she tried to push the unpleasant visions from her mind.    
  
From the floor, the unnamed puppy circled the foot Daisy still had on the floor and whined up at the two of them, possibly sensing the change in their demeanor given the situation. When Daisy’s eyes finally met Jemma's, there was a vacant shadow cast over her gaze. "I don't know how you keep going every..." The words came out as a scant but reverent whisper between uncontrollably flinches as Jemma worked on her arm. One night. Daisy had spent one night when the bombs were actually falling. How did Jemma...or anyone else even, just keep going on day in and day out like this?  
  
“I just do.” Jemma said coolly, cleaning and dressing Daisy’s wounds one at a time and making sure she completed the job thoroughly. “The alternative would be to give in, to give up on our home and hand it over to that monster.” She reasoned, taping a bandage in place on Daisy’s arm. “So we fight.” She continued. Ever so gently, Jemma brought Daisy’s hand up to her lips and pressed a soft kiss to the backs of her knuckles. “The soldiers are fighting on the fronts and our job is to stay strong and keep morale back home.” She squeezed Daisy’s hand. “All we can do is keep calm and carry on.”


End file.
